4-Star Stocks Poised to Pop: SAIC

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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, government defense contractor SAIC (NYSE: SAI) has earned a respected four-star ranking.

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

SAIC facts

Headquarters (Founded)	McLean, Va. (1969)
Market Cap	$7.3 billion
Industry	IT consulting and other services
Trailing-12-Month Revenue	$10.6 billion
Management	CEO Walter Havenstein (since September 2009) CFO Mark Sopp (since November 2005)
Return on Equity (Average, Past 3 Years)	21.5%
Cash/Debt	$951 million / $1.11 billion
Competitors	Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) Raytheon (NYSE: RTN) Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC)
CAPS Members Bullish on SAI Also Bullish on	Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL)
CAPS Members Bearish on SAI Also Bearish on	Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) USG (NYSE: USG)

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

On CAPS, 96.2% of the 156 All-Star members who have rated SAIC believe the stock will outperform the S&P 500 going forward. These bulls include mrindependent and TMFPlatoish, both of whom are ranked in the top 2% of our community.

Just last week, mrindependent reminded Fools that "SAIC is a military and government contracting company that seems to have an extremely diversified and stable book of business." Our CAPS All-Star continues: "The company has grown rapidly over the last ten years and typically generates returns on equity in excess of 20%. The company holds a 900 million cash war chest, which almost enough to offset its $1.1 billion debt balance."

In an earlier pitch, TMFPlatoish expands on the stock as a solid way to play defense:

SAIC is in all kinds of different business areas and has its hands in a huge number of ongoing government programs. It is one of the largest platform independent service providers to the government. In other words, it doesn't deliver big weapon systems or fighting platforms, rather it works on all of them and gets its cut of the pie, no matter who wins the hardware contract, in many instances. ...

I believe SAIC can grow sales at high single digit rates and earnings/cash flow at rates in the low-to-mid teens practically forever. It won't be a home run and multi-bagger over a short time frame, but it is a well run company in an industry dependent on relations.

What do you think about SAIC, 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!