People watch stocks for different reasons -- they're waiting for a dip in price, watching for a specific catalyst, gathering all the news and information that might affect stocks they already own, or considering a sell. Regardless of their motivation, we can better understand market sentiment by seeing who's watching what. With the Fool's free My Watchlist service, we have tens of thousands of people telling us the businesses that have, for whatever reason, piqued their interest.

With this data we have come up with a new metric, watch interest, to inform investors what stocks their peers keep tabs on in each industry. In the case of the electrical equipment industry, watch interest is the percentage of people keeping an eye on electrical equipment stocks in general who are specifically watching each company. By looking at what stocks people are most interested in an industry, you can get ahead of the curve by finding hot stocks that you might have otherwise overlooked.

The most-watched electrical equipment stock is ...
Looking at the aggregate data, we see that A123 Systems (Nasdaq: AONE) is above the rest in terms of watch interest and for good reason. As CAPS player btrimble wrote in June:

With [A123's] investment in their recently completed production facility, profitability should be on the horizon. The debt associated with the production facility should be viewed as an asset rather than a liability since the facility is now online. Escalating energy costs should continue to provide long term demand for [A123] lithium ion and other energy storage devices. The new facility might even escalate the firm to be the leading global producer of alternative energy electric storage devices.

Here are the rest of the 15 most-watched companies in the industry with their watch interest along with the stocks' CAPS rating to show the sentiment of our investing community.

 

Company

Market Cap (millions)

CAPS Rating (out of 5)

Watch Interest

1

A123 Systems

$534

***

7.9%

2

Advanced Battery Technologies (Nasdaq: ABAT)

$100

**

7.7%

3

Capstone Turbine (Nasdaq: CPST)

$361

***

7.1%

4

American Superconductor (Nasdaq: AMSC)

$349

**

6.9%

5

Emerson Electric (NYSE: EMR)

$36,426

*****

6.3%

6

FuelCell Energy (Nasdaq: FCEL)

$161

**

5.4%

7

Satcon Technology (Nasdaq: SATC)

$199

***

4.6%

8

A-Power Energy Generation Systems

$66

***

4.5%

9

II-VI (Nasdaq: IIVI)

$1,402

*****

3.2%

10

Ener1

$147

*

3.1%

11

Valence Technology (Nasdaq: VLNC)

$211

*

2.8%

12

PowerSecure International (Nasdaq: POWR)

$121

****

2.5%

13

Jinpan International (NYSE: JST)

$197

*****

2.5%

14

Polypore International (NYSE: PPO)

$3,206

***

2.0%

15

Harbin Electric (Nasdaq: HRBN)

$506

*

2.0%

Sources: Motley Fool, Motley Fool CAPS.

Whether you're keeping an eye on the industry stalwarts like Emerson Electric or are watching an up-and-comer like Harbin Electric, it pays to watch. We can help you keep tabs on your companies with My Watchlist, our free, personalized stock tracking service. Click here to start now.