Wall Street's Buy List

Actions speak louder than words, as the old saying goes. So why does the media focus so much attention on what Wall Street says about companies, instead of what it does with them?

Luckily for Wall Street watchers, the Internet brings us MSN Money's list of which companies the institutions are buying. True, we should be as skeptical of Wall Street's actions as we are of its words. But when the 140,000-plus lay and professional investors on Motley Fool CAPS agree with Wall Street's opinions, it just might be time for some buying.

Here's the latest edition of Wall Street's Buy List, alongside our investors' opinions of the companies involved:

Companies are selected from the "Institutional Ownership Up Last Month" list published on MSN Money on the Saturday following close of trading last week. Recent price provided by Yahoo! Finance. CAPS ratings from Motley Fool CAPS.

Wall Street vs. Main Street
Wall Street traders are buying these stocks hand over fist. Down here on Main Street, however, we wonder if the professionals would be better off sitting on their hands. It seems Fools aren't at all excited by the prospects for Las Vegas Sands, Radian, or Eastman Kodak outperforming the market.

That said, two of these stocks do excite us. Both Allied Irish Banks and Macquarie Infrastructure score high marks within the CAPS community. Now, you can read all about Allied Irish -- and why we like it-- in the pages of the Fool's Global Gains international investing newsletter. But that's not the case with Macquarie. On this one, we'll have to do a bit of digging on our own ...

The bull case for Macquarie Infrastructure
CAPS member dogfish54 introduced us to Macquarie last summer by saying, "They are part of Macquarie Group of Australia, a VERY VERY successful business which owns a lot of big infrastructure in Australia. The parent has a lot of experience and success in infrastructure and I think this will be a very good stock over the long term."

sghattas2 quickly agreed that Macquarie "runs solid businesses that are needed and generate good cash flow." And yet, the stock has fallen some 70% over the past year -- but to colin54 that's a plus. He thinks Macquarie's been "[b]eaten down too far in the 08 sell off. Restructuring and a strong management team focused on paying down debt should return value to this company."

Now, I admit that Macquarie appears to be a very cheap stock. If you're the kind of Fool who invests for income, and likes strong utility plays like Duke Energy (NYSE:DUK), ConEd (NYSE:ED), or Southern Company (NYSE:SO) for the beefy 5%-plus dividends they pay, then chances are you'd love Macquarie, if it paid the dividend it used to -- $2.12 in 2008. Macquarie's infrastructure portfolio generates a reliable stream of cash flow, but the company has suspended the dividend to reduce debt.

The company's already hip deep in debt -- nearly $1.5 billion worth -- which is rather a lot for a shop whose market cap doesn't even reach $300 million. Interest on this debt cost Macquarie $110 million over the last 12 months, while the company generated less than $80 million in operating profit. Wow.

Time to chime in
To me, this looks like a crazy way to run a business. (And this is not the first time I've said so.) Still, many CAPS members seem impressed with Macquarie. They appear to believe that management knows what it's doing ... and Wall Street sure likes the company ... so maybe I'm missing something here.

If you know what it is, then here's your chance to show off. Click on over to Motley Fool CAPS now, and tell us why this story isn't as bad as it looks.

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