The clock's ticking down, your team's down one, you're being double-teamed, and you wouldn't have enough time to get off a good shot even if you were allowed to drop-kick both defenders. So who do you dish the rock to?
Your first thought might be the resident superstar -- the Kobe Bryant or LeBron James. But what if Kobe, as good as Kobe is, is playing colder than an Alaskan snowdrift? That's right, you dish to the guy with the hot hand, the guy who will be deemed en fuego tomorrow on ESPN.
Momentum investors are looking for stocks in a similar state of sizzle when they make investments. They want to give the nod to the stocks that are hot to the touch.
But momentum by itself will only get you so far. What sounds more interesting to me than simply looking for stocks that have momentum is finding high-quality stocks that also have some positive inertia on their side. It's like kicking the ball out to Michael Jordan or Larry Bird when they do have a hot hand.
To find these high-quality winners, I cross-referenced a pretty simple momentum screen with data from The Motley Fool's new investing community, CAPS. The result is a starting lineup of all-star stocks that all currently have a fiery shooting hand. Each of the companies below is up 30% or more over the past year, is within 5% of its 52-week high, and has been rated highly by CAPS players.
|
Stock |
12-Month Change |
Percent Below 52-Week High |
CAPS Rating (out of 5) |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Chevron Corp. |
51.7% |
1.2% |
***** |
|
Halliburton |
37.9% |
1.5% |
**** |
|
ABB Ltd. |
94.2% |
0.6% |
***** |
|
Western Digital |
45.2% |
0.5% |
**** |
|
Baker Hughes |
41.8% |
0.6% |
**** |
At first glance, this sure looks like a high-quality group. But, as always, I highly advise taking a close look before you throw a bounce pass in the direction of any of these stocks.
An all-star value?
If you have any inclination toward value investing, it's quite likely that Western Digital has hit your radar at some point during the past year. Sure, you may show your appreciation for Warren Buffett by saying "nuts" to technology, but come on -- on a trailing basis, the company is returning nearly 40% on its equity and more than 10% on total assets. Right now, WD is sitting on $1.94 in trailing-12-month earnings per share, giving it a P/E of 12.7 -- and that's after a run-up of darn near 50% since early April.
Part of the strong performance has been because the tech sector in general has gotten some wind in its sails recently. The market has been a bit unsteady, and investors see a wide variety of financial names (which make up a big chunk of the S&P 500) as downright scary. Thus, well-known and relatively solid tech names like Western Digital or Intel
Add to that the fact that WD was just so darn cheap, and you have the ingredients for the kind of run the stock has had. As CAPS All-Star keif also pointed out, the market may have been too quick to think that newer flash technology spelled the end for hard disk drives. He thinks that "the fact is that the brand new flash technology is way too expensive, and hard drives will continue to have a great price advantage until 2012."
So does Western Digital deserve a place on your All-Star team? You can share your thoughts on it -- or check out more of what your fellow Fools have to say about it or any of the other stocks above -- by stopping by CAPS. And while you're there, you can also take a peek at few more of the 5,000 other rated stocks.
I think I heard a "booyah" somewhere out there -- thanks, Stuart Scott!
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