5 Stocks That Just Won't Quit

• Email
• Share
• Print

In my weekly Fool column "Get Ready for the Fall," I run Nasdaq.com's 52-week highs list through the "wisdom of crowds" meter we call Motley Fool CAPS. The result is a list of stocks that have flown so high, investors are starting to get nervous about that whole "gravity" thing. But while many stocks will indeed plunge back to Earth, some seem immune to gravity, steadily riding a rising megatrend to ever-greater heights.

Today, we'll move beyond stocks that have hit 52-week highs, and identify companies now surpassing five solid years of outperformance. Which of these will thrash the market averages for another half-decade? Here are this week's leading contenders:

Stock	Recent Price	CAPS Rating (out of 5)	Bull Factor
Orchids Paper Products  (AMEX: TIS)	$19.00	*****	100%
HMS Holdings  (Nasdaq: HMSY)	$40.06	***	95%
Clarient (Nasdaq: CLRT)	$3.63	**	87%
Edwards Lifesciences	$67.36	**	84%
STEC (Nasdaq: STEC)	$24.20	**	62%

Companies are selected from the "New 5-Year Highs" list published on MSN Money on Thursday. CAPS ratings from Motley Fool CAPS.

"Everybody loves a winner"
Um, not really. As this week's list demonstrates, sometimes investors watch a stock go through the roof, and couldn't care less (HMS). Other times, they fear that -- its temporary suspension notwithstanding -- the law of gravity must be obeyed: What goes up must come down (hence the negative ratings on Clarient, Edwards, and STEC.)

And then there are the times when investors see a stock shoot skywards, yet remain convinced that everything will come out roses regardless.

"Roses?" Make that Orchids ... Paper Products
Paper products aren't ordinarily considered a growth industry -- not in this age of Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE). Yet the fact remains: When it comes to cleaning up spills and wiping baby bottoms, Bounty beats a PDF file every time. Knowing this, CAPS All-Star nightowljmg shows no fear in predicting that: "Orchids Paper Products will outperform the S&P 500 because of their excellent growth in earnings per share. ... As the economy continues to shrink, more people will shop at super discount dollar stores, which will increase demand for Orchids' products."

Fellow All-Star zanemoney999 agrees that Orchids makes: "Very good paper $$." Still, fundamentals aside, All-Star investor LatePlay thinks the real reason to buy Orchids today boils down to: "momentum."

And I have to tell you, folks, that when I first looked over Orchids' numbers, I was inclined to agree with LatePlay. At $19 per share, this stock sells for nearly a 17 times trailing earnings and 3 times its book value. For a tiny operator in a commodity industry -- one that has little-to-no analyst coverage that might provide us with an idea of its growth rate, these numbers look steep.

And yet, compare these numbers to a few of Orchids' larger rivals in the paper-sphere. Global giant International Paper (NYSE: IP), for example, sells for a P/B ratio just half that of what Orchids commands. At first glance, this suggests Orchids is wildly overpriced. But it's the second glance that is more telling.

International Paper, you see, is currently losing money from its business. In contrast, Kimberly-Clark (NYSE: KMB) -- a more diversified firm -- sports a profit margin comparable to that of Orchids, and a price-to-book value twice as large.

Speaking of "twice as large," the sole analyst following Orchids predicts its profits will more than double this year, cutting its P/E ratio roughly in half. This at a time when International Paper's profits are set to go up in smoke, while Kimberly-Clark's grow hardly at all.

Time to chime in
In the end, I found a whole lot more going for Orchids Paper Products than I expected to find going in. That said, the stock has had an incredible run (up 140% over the past year), and its P/E now looks... optimistic -- sufficiently high that I do not plan to become a buyer.

But that's just my opinion. What we'd really like to know is whether you investors out there think that Orchids can keep growing like a weed. Click on over to Motley Fool CAPS and tell us what you think.