4-Star Stocks Poised to Pop: Silver Wheaton

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Based on the aggregated intelligence of 140,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, Canadian silver royalty holding company Silver Wheaton (NYSE: SLW) has earned a respected four-star ranking.

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

Silver Wheaton facts

Headquarters (Founded)	Vancouver, Canada (1994)
Market Cap	$4.87 billion
Industry	Silver
Trailing-12-Month Revenue	$147.1 million
Management	CEO Peter Barnes (since 2006) CFO Gary Brown (since 2008)
Return on Equity (Average, Past 3 Years)	8.8%
Cash / Debt	$48.6 million / $150 million
Other Highly Rated Silver Plays	Pan American Silver (Nasdaq: PAAS) Coeur d'Alene Mines (NYSE: CDE)
CAPS Members Bullish on SLW Also Bullish on	Yamana Gold (NYSE: AUY) Vale (NYSE: VALE)
CAPS Members Bearish on SLW Also Bearish on	Barrick Gold (NYSE: ABX) Goldcorp (NYSE: GG)

Sources: Capital IQ (a division of Standard & Poor's) and Motley Fool CAPS.

On CAPS, 96% of the 1,640 members who have rated Silver Wheaton believe the stock will outperform the S&P 500 going forward. These bulls include All-Star msrs2k, who is ranked in the top 20% of our community, and sonnypage.

Late last month, msrs2k tapped Silver Wheaton as one of the purest ways to play the shiny stuff:

As a "silver streaming" company with existing contracts to buy silver from mining companies at very favorable prices, Silver Wheaton is very highly leveraged on the price of silver. If silver goes up, [Silver Wheaton] will benefit tremendously.

In an earlier pitch, sonnypage also points out the stock's silver lining:

Silver Wheaton is not a "miner" in the normal sense of the word. There are no miners wearing hard hats going down into Silver Wheaton mines since they own no mines. What Silver Wheaton is instead is what's called a "silver streaming" company; they have contracts with traditional gold and base metals miners to buy their "waste" silver as a by product of their mining for copper, gold, lead and zinc, at set contract prices. This is the most leveraged play on the price of silver I have found other than playing with options or futures.

What do you think about Silver Wheaton, or any other stock for that matter? Make your voice heard on Motley Fool CAPS today. The CAPS community is waiting to hear your opinions. CAPS is 100% free, so get started!