Recs

4

5-Star Stocks Poised to Pop: Exelis

Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, defense company Exelis (NYSE: XLS  ) has earned a coveted five-star ranking.

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

Exelis facts

   
Headquarters McLean, Va.
Market Cap $1.5 billion
Industry Aerospace and defense
Trailing-12-Month Revenue $6.0 billion
Management CEO David Melcher
CFO Peter Milligan
Trailing-12-Month Operating Margin 10.4%
Cash/Debt $64.0 million / $649.0 million
Dividend Yield 4.8%
Competitors Boeing (NYSE: BA  )
General Dynamics (NYSE: GD  )
Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT  )

Sources: S&P Capital IQ and Motley Fool CAPS.

On CAPS, 94% of the 16 members who have rated Exelis believe the stock will outperform the S&P 500 going forward. These bulls include harleytodd and shamapant.

Earlier this week, harleytodd tapped the recent ITT (NYSE: ITT  ) spinoff as a timely bargain opportunity: "$6B rev with $2B mkt cap = cheap. P/E is 4 vs industry P/E of 20. 4.5% yield. The market regularly undervalues spinoffs for a period of time so buy it now!"

In fact, Exelis' P/E of 4 represents a clear discount to competitors like Boeing (14), General Dynamics (9), and Lockheed (9).

CAPS member shamapant elaborates on bull case:

Classic Undervalued Spinoff situation. Exelis trades at just over 4x earnings, and is hit hard for both being a spin-off and being in an industry with a bad rep, defense cuts. ITT shareholders invested for ITT, not for a spinoff company, let alone a defense company...these shares are undervalued-expect a bounce.

What do you think about Exelis, or any other stock for that matter? If you want to retire rich, you need to put together the best portfolio you can. Owning exceptional stocks is a surefire way to secure your financial future, and on Motley Fool CAPS, thousands of investors are working every day to find them. CAPS is 100% free, so get started!

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Fool contributor Brian Pacampara owns no position in any of the companies mentioned. The Fool owns shares of General Dynamics and Lockheed. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days.

We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Fool's disclosure policy always gets a perfect score.


Comments from our Foolish Readers

Help us keep this a respectfully Foolish area! This is a place for our readers to discuss, debate, and learn more about the Foolish investing topic you read about above. Help us keep it clean and safe. If you believe a comment is abusive or otherwise violates our Fool's Rules, please report it via the Report this Comment Report this Comment icon found on every comment.

  • Report this Comment On December 23, 2011, at 5:35 PM, jonesscr wrote:

    After finding about this stock and doing my own research along with recently re-reading my pocket-sized Peter Lynch book I mistakenly bought as a college student, I decided that it looked good enough to invest some grad money into. Low P/E, low volume and institutional ownership, recently spun-off in a niche market with good upside. Feeling pretty good about the purchase today @ 9.09

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Related Tickers

5/25/2012 4:06 PM
XLS $10.21 Down -0.05 -0.49%
Exelis Inc. CAPS Rating: ****
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LMT $82.71 Down -0.66 -0.79%
Lockheed Martin Co… CAPS Rating: ****
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GD $63.58 Up +0.24 +0.38%
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