5 All-Star Stocks

Win or lose, we all have an opinion about which stocks are rockets and which are dogs. If we could invest like Peter Lynch or Mohnish Pabrai, we'd probably have a lot more companies in our win column than on the loss side of the ledger. Warren Buffett began buying railroads last year, and just about any company that ran on tracks came into play.

So when top-notch investors back a stock, you might want to give it more consideration. Over on the investor collaboration site Motley Fool CAPS, we can do just that. On CAPS, players who've earned a rating of 80 or better by consistently outperforming their peers are dubbed All-Stars. Sometimes, these ace investors will back a stock that others think is a dog. Considering the All-Stars' track records, we might want to look a little more closely at their selections.

Here are five companies that have been marked down by some investors but enjoy unanimous All-Star backing:

Of course, this isn't a list of stocks to buy and sell. Instead, it should serve as a starting point for your own research and analysis.

Shot out of the sky
An argument could be made (and has been) that Canada can't afford to sell off its defense systems, even if it's to a company in the friendly U.S. Thus, the deal for Alliant Techsystems to buy the space division of Canadian defense provider MacDonald Dettwiler was killed by the Canadian government. Despite its having approved the sales to "foreigners" of Alcan, Inco, and Falconbridge, the $1.3 billion satellite sale (which can track very small objects through darkness and clouds) was denied.

The busted deal, while a setback for Alliant, isn't the only deal that the company has going for it. It still generates more than a third of its revenues from ammunition and gun sales to the military and law enforcement, while another third comes from launch systems for boosting rockets.

Although bigger defense contractors such as Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) or Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) grab most of the headlines, Alliant Techsystems has been one our soldiers on the ground have come to rely upon. It's for that reason that a number of investors, like broy76, believe it continues to be a stock investors must consider for their portfolio, regardless of their politics.

Alliant Technologies is a great play in the defense sector. They make the lead that go in the rounds our troops use. For all those people that are against the war you still need to look at this stock. We will be in Iraq and Afghanistan for years to come. That means this company will make profits and more profits.

Other investors, like CATERPILLAR77 and bsufan, see a humorous side to such military investing. They respectively note: "WAR MAKES MONEY" and "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!"

On a more serious side, snapperreef highlighted back in December Alliant's many lines of business and the growing body of work it's undertaking.

This company is the Pentagon's largest ammunition supplier and also the world's largest maker of solid-fuel rocket engines, and a significant supplier to NASA. ATK has become the leading supplier of civil (law enforcement) and sporting ammunition. In addition, we see ATK increasing its market share with NASA, with ongoing work on both the Space Shuttle and the lower stage of the Ares I launch vehicle, proposals for the upper stage of Ares 1.

An all-star act
Although a few CAPS investors have bet against the house here, we haven't yet heard from you. Why not head over to Motley Fool CAPS now and let us know what you think about these and your other favorite investments? It's completely free, and, along with the other 96,000 investors there, you may help uncover the next All-Star Stock.