This article is part of our Rising Star Portfolio series.
Today, my search continues for some great small- and mid-cap stocks to add to my real-money "multivitamin" portfolio. On Friday, I revealed the results for this month's Foolish 8 screen and came up with 10 candidates. Today, we turn to the Modified Foolish 8.
Mod squad
For a refresher, here's a summary of the changes I made to turn the Foolish 8 into the Mod 8:
- Raised the revenue cap to $900 million or less.
- Took the $25 million limit off the daily dollar volume requirement, making it simply $1 million or greater.
- Loosened the relative strength requirement to 50 or greater.
- Required not only positive cash flow, but also positive free cash flow.
- Required a price-to-free-cash-flow-to-cash-flow growth (PFCF-to-FCF growth) multiple of one or less. I have tweaked the screen to use actual FCF growth over the past year.
- Required greater than 15% return on equity over the past four quarters, and for each of the past three fiscal years.
According to the independent American Association of Individual Investors, the Mod 8 has an average annual growth rate of 20.2% from January 1998 through May 2011. The S&P 500 averaged 2.5% annually over that period. (Disclaimer: The AAII methodology involves buying a stock the month it appears on a screen and selling when it's off -- something we'd never do. Still, this performance points to the screen's strong potential.)
Only two companies pass the screen this month.
|
Company
|
Market Cap
(in millions)
|
Business
|
Add to Your Watchlist
|
| Hittite Microwave (Nasdaq: HITT ) |
$1,619 |
Integrated circuits |
Add |
| LSB Industries (NYSE: LXU ) |
$798 |
HVAC and chemical products |
Add |
Source: S&P Capital IQ.
Competing against the likes of TriQuint Semiconductor (Nasdaq: TQNT ) and Skyworks Solutions (Nasdaq: SWKS ) , Hittite designs and develops integrated circuits for various applications, including radio frequency and microwave applications. LSB is a diversified small-cap with two main segments, climate control and chemical. Its agriculture chemical products place it in direct competition with fertilizer powerhouses Terra Nitrogen (NYSE: TNH ) and PotashCorp (NYSE: POT ) . Digging deeper:
|
Company
|
Insider Ownership
|
Forward P/E
|
EV/FCF (TTM)
|
ROE
|
Net Margin
|
| Hittite Microwave |
10% |
20.7 |
19.6 |
22% |
31% |
| LSB Industries |
17% |
42.6 |
21.6 |
35% |
10% |
Source: S&P Capital IQ.
Onward and upward
In the coming days, I'll take a close look at these companies, as well as the small caps that passed Friday's Foolish 8 screen. I'll soon report back on whether any of them are a good fit for the portfolio. So far, I've bought three stocks off these screens: LSB Industries, lululemon athletica (Nasdaq: LULU ) , and Kulicke & Soffa.
If you're interested in keeping up with any of these companies, add them to your free watchlist and gain access to The Motley Fool special report "Six Stocks to Watch from David and Tom Gardner."
This article is part of our Rising Star Portfolio series, where we give some of our most promising stock analysts cold, hard cash to manage on the Fool's behalf. We'd like you to track our performance and benefit from these real-money, real-time free stock picks. Click here to see all of our Rising Star analysts (and their portfolios).
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