We'll have a much better read on exactly how well graphics-chip champ NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA ) has been weathering the economic storm after Thursday, but in recent months investors have most definitely come back around to the company's prospects. After cratering to under $6 per share late last year, NVIDIA's stock has been on a steady climb and has more than doubled from that low point.
But don't expect any shocked expressions from the members of The Motley Fool's CAPS community -- they've consistently rated the stock four or five stars (out of a possible five). Some CAPS members have managed to do better than the rest by timing an outperform call perfectly. koda300, for example, is one of the score leaders on NVIDIA and has racked up close to 90 points by sticking a thumb up in late October of last year.
koda300 is one of CAPS' All-Stars -- players with a rating of 80 or greater -- and has managed an impressive stock-picking accuracy of 73% while racking up more than 3,300 points. NVIDIA isn't this player's only great call. Here's a look at a few of the other prescient picks:
|
Company
|
Date Picked
|
Call
|
Points
|
CAPS Rating
|
|
Ford (NYSE: F )
|
11/7/08
|
Outperform
|
180
|
**
|
|
Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW )
|
3/16/09
|
Outperform
|
90
|
****
|
|
Petrobras (NYSE: PBR )
|
10/27/08
|
Outperform
|
83
|
*****
|
Data from CAPS.
So what is this investor looking at these days? Here are a few of the most recent calls on CAPS:
|
Company
|
Date Picked
|
Call
|
CAPS Rating
|
|
First Solar (Nasdaq: FSLR )
|
4/30/09
|
Outperform
|
**
|
|
American Capital (Nasdaq: ACAS )
|
4/16/09
|
Outperform
|
***
|
|
ArcelorMittal (NYSE: MT )
|
4/16/09
|
Outperform
|
*****
|
Data from CAPS.
While not all of these picks may pan out, they could be a good place to start further research. I decided to take a closer look at ArcelorMittal.
Infrastructure to the rescue?
In December, CAPS All-Star tuffsledding gave ArcelorMittal a thumbs-up, commenting:
Steel will recover as governments put stimulus money into infrastructure construction. The current price discounts all the bad news and ignores the long-term potential.
More recently, fellow CAPS All-Star and ArcelorMittal fan rpgizzle added:
MT has very diversified operations geographically. they are in every market. They an industry leader, and will benefit from the global turn around. US Steel is a good play too, but MT has better fundamentals.
So it sounds like we have infrastructure and a global turnaround as potential drivers for ArcelorMittal -- I couldn't agree more. If I were to start ticking off all of the products made with steel, we could be here all day, but suffice it to say that when it comes to steel, we're not just talking about major building projects.
However, right now we have -- as tuffsledding pointed out -- governments all over the world pumping money into infrastructure projects to try and shock their respective economies back to life. And that's a likely "ka-ching" for steel companies.
Of course, the steel industry could get the best of both worlds if the stimulus spending actually works in reviving economic growth and then demand starts to come back from other areas like consumer goods and autos.
But that's the relatively near-term picture for ArcelorMittal. After all, as real and as serious as the global recession is, I hardly expect that it will endure indefinitely. So what about when we look further out?
ArcelorMittal is already the world's largest steel producer, but it's done that primarily by building its position in the markets in the Americas, Africa, Europe, and central Asia. To date, the company's exposure to China and India is relatively small and growing -- and those are two of the economies with the most potential.
Add that potentially huge area of growth to the fact that the company's stock is currently trading at attractive levels, and I'm excited to have called ArcelorMittal an outperformer in my own CAPS portfolio.
But here's the important question: What's your take on ArcelorMittal? Will steel show its strength in the face of recession? Get in the action by clicking over to CAPS. It's absolutely free and already has more than 130,000 stock pickers chipping in to find the best stocks out there.
Related Foolishness:
RSS Headlines
Fool UK