3 Stocks That Just Make Sense

"I like to go for cinches. I like to shoot fish in a barrel. But I like to do it after the water has run out."
-- Warren Buffett

History seems to show that good investing doesn't necessarily mean picking out complex situations and basing your investment thesis on Nobel-level math. In fact, as the recent financial crisis has shown us -- not to mention Long Term Capital Management and many other examples -- too much complexity can often end in calamity.

In an effort to track down some of the companies that may fall into that "fish in a barrel" category, I've turned to The Motley Fool's CAPS community. To put together a candidate list, I looked for companies with a conservative balance sheet, a dividend, annualized earnings growth of 5% or better over the past three years, a price-to-earnings ratio below 15, and a high rating from the CAPS community.

Source: CAPS and Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's.

While the three companies above aren't meant to be formal recommendations, they are a good starting point for some further research. And on that note, let's take a closer look why these potential investments might make a whole lot of sense.

America Movil
For U.S. investors there's good reason to like major telecom companies like AT&T (NYSE:T) and Verizon (NYSE:VZ). They've got stable businesses, fantastic cash flow, and big, fat dividend yields. But for investors looking for more growth than U.S. telecoms can offer, foreign telecoms, particularly in emerging economies can be a better bet.

In the case of America Movil, Mexico may not be as flashy as countries like China and India, but the country has offered plenty of growth opportunity for the giant telecom. But can the good times continue? It seems likely. While the cellular penetration in Mexico is high, the country still has room to run before catching up to developed countries like the U.S. And this says nothing for the company's operations in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and elsewhere.

So what's the verdict on America Movil? If you ask me, the stock seems to make a whole lot of sense.

Sysco
What's there really to say about North America's largest foodservice distributor? What's there to wonder about when it comes to a company with 400,000 customers, and more than 400,000 products, that delivers around 1.2 billion cases of food per year?

Well, for one, investors might be wondering whether such a company could actually grow.

Fear not. Though Sysco racked up a hefty $37 billion in sales in 2009, that only gave the company a 17% market share in its industry. While both Sysco and the overall industry's growth have slowed over the past few decades, the company has shown a continued ability to not only keep up with industry growth, but significantly outpace it.

With a solid balance sheet, an impressive 30%-plus return on equity, and a 3.5% dividend to boot, Sysco's stock may just be tasty enough to eat.

CVS Caremark
Thanks to the President's efforts to revamp the U.S. health-care system, health-care companies have been in the hot seat recently. But for companies like CVS, which, through its vast drugstore network and pharmacy benefit management business, may be well positioned to help make the system more efficient, there could be more opportunity ahead than threat.

That's not to say that there aren't plenty of threats that CVS already has to deal with. Since the Caremark acquisition, the company not only competes with traditional foes like Walgreen (NYSE:WAG), but other PBMs such as MedcoHealth (NYSE:MHS). But the need for prescription drugs isn't disappearing and CVS hasn't grown its revenue more than tenfold over the past 20 years by being a slouch. So it doesn't seem like a stretch to expect the company to continue to churn out profitable growth.

On CAPS, more than 1,600 members have weighed in with their thoughts on CVS and enough have been bullish to score the stock a four-star rating. CAPS member RXDOC73 has been a fan of CVS's stock since the fall of 2008 when this All-Star stock picker gave a simple prescription for CVS's success:

People are just getting older and sicker and will continue to need more medications (especially the newer biotech specialty drugs). Convenience is king and this is one player that will remain in the drug store wars.

Getting down to business
Now the CAPS community wants you. That's right, do you think these stocks make sense? Or is the community off-base in its faith in these companies? Head over to CAPS and join the 150,000 members that area already sharing their thoughts on thousands of stocks.

Concerned a stock in your portfolio doesn't make sense? Check out my three signs of a terrible investment.