I love bargain stocks, especially when they're hitting 52-week lows. Still, it can be instructive to also look at stocks that are riding high.

For one thing, they can make good sell candidates. More optimistically, we may be able to find a few companies that can continue their upward climbs.

In this series, I'll be searching industry by industry for stocks reaching 52-week highs. That way, we'll be able to make a few quick comparisons among semi-related companies.

There are 24 industry groups as defined by the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS). Software and services is one of them.

Below are the top six companies in this space (by market cap) that are within spitting distance of their 52-week highs.

Company

Recent Price

52-Week Low

52-Week High

P/E Ratio (Trailing)

Google (Nasdaq: GOOG)

$616.50

$433.60

$629.51

24.9
IBM (NYSE: IBM)

$139.84

$116.00

$143.03

12.7
Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL)

$28.84

$20.70

$29.29

23.1
SAP AG (NYSE: SAP)

$51.62

$40.95

$54.66

22.1
Infosys (Nasdaq: INFY)

$66.90

$45.24

$71.99

27.6
Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU)

$112.17

$36.91

$113.78

93.4

Source: Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's; and Yahoo! Finance.

Google has come onto the radar of many value investors, including Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger.

Munger: "Google has a huge new moat. In fact I've probably never seen such a wide moat."

Buffett: "I don't know how to take [the moat] away from them."

Munger: "Their moat is filled with sharks!"

I contemplated buying in when it was closer to its 52-week lows but held out for even better prices. Probably an "oops" on my part, so I'll keep it on my watchlist.

The consultancies are riding high as well. You see IBM and Infosys on this list. And Accenture would have made it, too, if I'd extended the list a little. I'm a longtime fan of Accenture (and also a former employee), while Bill Miller is bullish on IBM.

If you're interested in reading more about any of these stocks, add them to My Watchlist to find all of our Foolish analysis on them.