Editor's note: A previous version of this article included a company not involved in chemical manufacturing among the featured stocks. The Fool regrets the error.

People watch stocks for different reasons -- they're waiting for a dip in price, watching for a specific catalyst, gathering all the news and information that might affect stocks they already own, or considering a sell. Regardless of their motivation, we can better understand market sentiment by seeing who's watching what. With the Fool's free My Watchlist service, we have tens of thousands of people telling us the businesses that have, for whatever reason, piqued their interest.

The most-watched chemical stock is ...
Looking at the aggregate data, we see that Yongye International (Nasdaq: YONG) is above the rest in terms of watch interest, the percentage of people keeping an eye on Chemical stocks in general who are specifically watching each company. And for good reason.

Yongye International allows you to cash in on China's rapidly growing population and need for feeding its population. As Fool analyst Adam Wiederman wrote:

[Yongye International] is based in northern China and provides super-concentrated liquid fertilizer that promises farmers a high return on their investment. Yongye has an innovative marketing strategy to woo over Chinese farmers, who are notoriously opposed to change, and it's working better than expected. Yongye's balance sheet is also strong.

Here are the rest of the top 15 most-watched companies in the industry with their watch interest along with the stocks' CAPS rating to show the sentiment of our investing community.

Rank

Company

Market Cap 
(in millions)

CAPS Rating 
(out of 5)

Watch 
Interest

1

Yongye International $331 ***** 17.1%

2

China Green Agriculture (NYSE: CGA) $170 **** 16.2%

3

PotashCorp $47,309 **** 7.0%

4

DuPont $48,229 **** 5.4%

5

Mosaic $34,320 ***** 5.2%

6

Monsanto (NYSE: MON) $36,049 **** 5.1%

7

Rockwood $3,516 ***** 4.0%

8

Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW) $41,706 **** 4.0%

9

Olin $1,589 ***** 2.3%

10

Innophos $2,300 **** 2.2%

11

Sherwin-Williams $8,660 *** 2.2%

12

Chemical & Mining Co. of Chile $13,605 ***** 2.0%

13

Terra Nitrogen (NYSE: TNH) $2,022 **** 1.2%

14

China Agritech (NYSE: CAGC) $143 *** 1.1%

15

PPG Industries (NYSE: PPG) $14,200 **** 1.1%

Source: Motley Fool, Motley Fool CAPS.

Whether you're keeping an eye on the industry stalwarts like PotashCorp or are watching an up-and-comer like Yongye International, it pays to watch. We can help you keep tabs on your companies with My Watchlist, our free, personalized stock tracking service. Click here to start now.