5-Star Stocks Poised to Pop: Navios Maritime

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Based on the aggregated intelligence of 135,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, Greek shipper Navios Maritime (NYSE: NM) has earned a coveted five-star ranking.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Navios' business and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.

Navios facts

Headquarters	Piraeus, Greece
Market Cap	$407.9 million
Industry	Shipping
Trailing-12-Month Revenue	$1.05 billion
Management	Chairman/CEO Angeliki Frangou (since 2008) CFO George Achniotis (since 2007)
Return on Equity (average, last three years)	24.5%
Dividend Yield	5.9%
Competitors	DryShips (Nasdaq: DRYS) Excel Maritime (NYSE: EXM)
CAPS Members Bullish on NM Also Bullish on:	Diana Shipping (NYSE: DSX) Vale (NYSE: VALE)
CAPS Members Bearish on NM Also Bearish on:	Citigroup (NYSE: C) Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS)

Sources: Capital IQ (a division of Standard & Poor's), and Motley Fool CAPS.

Over on CAPS, some 98% of the 450 All-Star members who have rated Navios believe the stock will outperform the S&P 500 going forward. These bulls include turtle286 and EggplantWizard, both of whom are ranked in the top 10% of our community.

Last month, turtle286 reminded Fools that Navios "is a solid company with very manageable debt, solid charter contracts in place and it has management team that has been able to successfully navigate through last years credit crisis." Our CAPS member concluded: "The dividend is also a nice perk, though many shippers have slashed theirs recently, [Navios'] seems to be well funded and will hopefully stay."

In a pitch from one day later, EggplantWizard expands on the opportunity:

Navios sports an attractive quick and current ratio in this highly leveraged industry. Many, many dry-ship companies are likely to go bust over the next 2-3 years due to a combination of leverage and fraud, but this company has convinced me that it has avoided both.

In any case, they have a fleet with relatively staggered age and a proven ability to source inexpensive additional charters from competitors to close deals, and an extremely solid opportunity to pick up business (and ships?) from underfunded competitors as this global slump lasts longer than anticipated and fraudulent or over leveraged competitors go bust.

I don't see a solid reason for it to be trading at half of its book value.

What do you think about Navios Maritime, or any other stock for that matter? Make your voice heard on Motley Fool CAPS today. More than 135,000 investors are waiting to hear what you have to say. CAPS is 100% free, so simply click here to get started.