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 health care technology stock is ...
Looking at the aggregate data, we see that Quality Systems (Nasdaq: QSII) is above the rest in terms of watch interest, the percentage of people keeping an eye on health care technology stocks in general who are specifically watching each company. And for good reason. As CAPS All-Star kayceygirl wrote in August:

This is one of my STARZ.
Here is the thought process on this STAR:
a) Divided rate over Zero
b) 3 Year Beta between -5 & 3
c) 15% Insider ownership
d) No greater than -50% Growth rate for the last 3 years (tough last couple of years so good that insiders are still owning the stocks)
e) Current CAPS rating between 3 Stars & 5 Stars
Open to all Industries and Sectors screened this down to just 250 stocks. I like round numbers. 12 of them I already own through other screening tools. I tend to be somewhat conservative but looking for 3 things at this point in my investing:
1. Stability & Strength
2. Yield and Modest Growth
3. Strong Position within a sector regardless of whether the
entire sector is strong or not. Each sector has to perform to some degree for the whole world economy to function. I am looking for 5 or more years down the road, ROI, and Growth. Not looking for rockets, just stars. This is a Star!!

Here are the rest of the top 10 most-watched companies in the industry with their watch interest along with the stocks' CAPS rating to show the sentiment of our investing community.

 

Company

Market Cap (millions)

CAPS Rating (out of 5)

Watch Interest

1

Quality Systems

$2,503

****

66.8%

2

Allscripts Healthcare Solutions (Nasdaq: MDRX)

$4,251

***

8.0%

3

Cerner (Nasdaq: CERN)

$9,389

***

4.5%

4

SXC Health Solutions (Nasdaq: SXCI)

$1,605

****

3.7%

5

Merge Healthcare (Nasdaq: MRGE)

$410

***

3.0%

6

athenahealth (Nasdaq: ATHN)

$1,594

*

2.0%

7

Transcend Services

$251

****

1.9%

8

Healthstream

$175

****

1.7%

9

Emdeon (NYSE: EM)

$1,496

***

1.6%

10

MedAssets

$916

***

1.6%

Source: Motley Fool, Motley Fool CAPS.

Whether you're keeping an eye on the industry stalwarts such as Cerner or are watching an up-and-comer such as MedAssets, 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.