Building a successful stock portfolio starts with finding great businesses.  And finding great businesses requires digging through financial statements, news, and other information sources to find companies with leading growth rates, strong margins, and healthy financials.  

In our Prospecting Stocks screen, we evaluate proprietary community intelligence from the 135,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS as well as four key, hand-picked fundamental criteria. 

Our goal is to accelerate your research, and find the stocks that are worth a closer look.  So get out your shovel and pickaxe, as we start digging for gold!

Cisco Systems vs. Industry Peers

Company

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO)

 

Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM)

 

3Com (NASDAQ:COMS)

 

F5 Networks (NYSE:FFIV)

 

CAPS Community Rating
We prefer 4-star or 5-star stocks.

****

YES

***

no

**

no

***

no

CAPS 1000
We like stocks rated "outperform" by 80% of top CAPS members.

96.0% Outperform

YES

87.0% Outperform

YES

62.5% Outperform

no

72.7% Outperform

no

Five-Year Revenue Growth
We like to see five-year revenue growth of at least 10%.

12.3%

YES

16.9%

YES

17.7%

YES

32.1%

YES

Gross Margin (TTM)
We like to see gross margins of 35% or higher.

65.4%

YES

70.4%

YES

59.3%

YES

81.7%

YES

Total Debt-to-Equity
A total debt-to-equity ratio of 0.50 or less gets a check.

0.28

YES

0

YES

0.18

YES

0

YES

Return on Equity
We look for a minimum of 14% return on equity.

16.5%

YES

8.9%

no

10.3%

no

10.7%

no

What do you think about Cisco Systems?  If you'd like to make your own call on Cisco, or post a pitch about why you think it will outperform or underperform the market, click here. Of course, you can also simply see what other members are saying about Cisco now, or read their opinions on more than 5,300 other stocks, by joining us on CAPS.

Our Prospecting Stocks screen is a simplified version of the special checklist that has helped Jeff Fischer and the Pro community to find the next opportunities for the Motley Fool Pro portfolio.  Learn more about Motley Fool Pro.