I love bargain stocks, especially when they're hitting 52-week lows. Still, it can be instructive to also look at stocks that are riding high.

For one thing, they can make good sell candidates. More optimistically, we may be able to find a few companies that can continue their upward climbs.

In this series, I'll be searching industry-by-industry for stocks reaching 52-week highs. That way, we'll be able to make a few quick comparisons among semi-related companies.

There are 24 industry groups as defined by the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS). Household and personal products is one of them.

Below are the top six companies in this space (by market cap) that are within spitting distance of their 52-week highs.

Company

Recent Price

52-week Low

52-week High

P/E Ratio (Trailing)

Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG)

$63.08

$39.37

$64.58

15.4

Avon (NYSE: AVP)

$32.82

$25.00

$36.39

22.4

Estee Lauder (NYSE: EL)

$64.77

$39.98

$71.29

27.2

Clorox (NYSE: CLX)

$66.38

$57.72

$69.00

15.7

Energizer (NYSE: ENR)

$73.91

$49.25

$77.09

14.6

Church & Dwight (NYSE: CHD)

$66.96

$54.57

$70.14

17.4

Source: Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's, and Yahoo! Finance.

As I warned in my look at my 52-lows article in this space, you have to be careful with highs and lows because many of these stocks simply don't tend to be that volatile. You'll notice Clorox on both lists. And don't be fooled by P&G's low of $39.37. That was purely a flash crash phenomenon. If you look at its chart, it's a flat line this year.

Kimberly Clark (NYSE: KMB), which made the lows list, would have made the highs list today, but its stock has fallen since reporting a 19% quarterly profit drop on Tuesday. For me, that's something to look into to determine if it's temporary weakness. 

If you are interested in reading more about any of these stocks, add them to My Watchlist to find all of our Foolish analysis on them.