10 Stocks Shaking the Market

Some stocks are one-hit wonders, making a big splash when they first appear, then quickly fizzling into obscurity or oblivion. But for other stocks, that initial big move is only a preview of even bigger and better gains to come.

Today, we've compiled 10 stocks that made some of the biggest upward moves over the past month. We then paired that list with the ratings issued by our 140,000-member Motley Fool CAPS community. The higher each stock's rating, the greater CAPS members' faith in that company's ability to keep on beating the market.

30-day change from July 31 to Aug. 31.

As changes in consumer sentiment whipsaw the markets, there will be weeks like this one where we see gains that are exceptionally ahead of the pace of the movers and shakers of prior weeks. So before we get shaken out again, let's see why the CAPS community thinks some of these companies might continue to outperform the market.

A mighty temblor
You could almost hear the funeral dirge after commercial lender CIT Group announced yesterday that it would miss an interest payment on loans extending out to 2067. Unless CIT is able to restructure its mountain of debt -- including almost $10 billion in debt maturing next year -- management says bankruptcy is unavoidable. CIT has been fending off the inevitable as the credit crisis deepened and liquidity became hard to come by.

Two weeks ago it got a bit of a reprieve when it won just enough support from bondholders to restructure $1 billion in debt, which itself followed on the heels of winning some $3 billion in rescue financing. With its immediate future seemingly more secure, shares in the lender soared -- but that was little more than speculation in an otherwise risky business.

Despite the precarious financial position, investors remain surprisingly bullish on its eventual success. CAPS member GenericMike predicted last month that bondholders would approve the restructuring and thinks some sort of government bailout is even possible:

This thing has nowhere to go but up. People rode it down betting on bankruptcy but it turns out that it had too much support from parties heavily invested in CIT's future to force a Bankruptcy. I think once the August 14th tender deadline arrives the company will make an announcement about debt restructuring in progress with their November and beyond debt, bankruptcy will be off the table, and this will outperform over the next year regardless of what the market does. They have a ton of good assets still. And I wouldn't rule out government assistance once they get past their August 17th debt maturity either.

Still feeling the aftershocks
Another company backing away from the abyss is trucking company YRC Worldwide. It announced yesterday that it was able to amend an agreement with lenders on a revolving $950 million credit facility, allowing it to suspend the requirement that it maintain liquidity of $100 million at all times.

The owner of trucking names Roadway, Yellow, and New Penn has been devastated by the recession. Cutting wages, laying off workers, and amending other credit agreements are stopgap measures that can't fundamentally alter the precarious financial position the company is in or the severe depression of the trucking industry.

The American Trucking Association gave a glimmer of hope with reports that its July tonnage index showed a 2.1% increase from the month before, but it's still off more than 10% from a year ago -- and that was the "best" rate of decline since February! Even its chief economist notes that there's nothing to suggest there will be a significant upturn in the numbers anytime soon, meaning financially troubled truckers like YRC may yet be destined for failure.

Highly rated CAPS All-Star superdave1979 sees the end of the road coming sooner rather than later:

The writing is on the wall for YRC. The whole industry has smelled blood for awhile and steadily taken away business from YRC. They have to keep pushing out their debt covenants, because they can't meet them. The recent union concessions are too little, too late. They should be in bankruptcy by the end of the year, if not before.

Shake, rattle, and roll
It pays to start your own research on these stocks shaking the market this past month on Motley Fool CAPS. Read a company's financial reports, scrutinize key data and charts, and examine the comments your fellow investors have made -- all from a stock's CAPS page.