"The bigger they are, the harder they fall." This old saying sums up the worst nightmare of every homeowner, every gold buyer, and every investor in today's market. Dare ye buy at the top?
Every day, Nasdaq.com publishes a list of the market's top stocks -- the companies whose shares have just hit their highest intraday price of any time in the past 52 weeks. Every day, investors read this list and tremble -- some with greed (big mo', baby!), and others in pure, unmitigated, acrophobic terror (whatever you do, don't look down).
Over on Motley Fool CAPS, thousands of investors just like you are watching these same companies and voting with their gut on whether they'll keep rising or stumble and fall. Usually, the ratings wax optimistic as stocks hit new highs -- because everyone loves a winner. But what do you make of it when some of the smartest investors out there are panning a hot stock?
You could heed them. You could ignore them. You could take the stock tickers and construct anagrams from 'em. For my money, though, the best course of action is to use the "52-Week High" list as just a starting point for further research. After all, stocks can go up for many reasons, and it's up to you to decide how worthy those reasons are. But thanks to Motley Fool CAPS, now you don't have to make the decision alone.
With that said, let's meet today's list of contenders, drawn from the latest "52-Week High" list at Nasdaq.com. What does our panel of more than 60,000 stock gurus (and counting) have to say about them?
One Year Ago Today |
Currently Fetching |
||
---|---|---|---|
Navteq |
$37.03 |
$48.38 |
***** |
Intuitive Surgical |
$117.20 |
$198.59 |
**** |
Constellation Energy |
$54.59 |
$96.22 |
***** |
Western Digital |
$17.52 |
$22.83 |
**** |
Riverbed Technology |
* |
$48.73 |
*** |
NCR Corp. |
$32.46 |
$55.27 |
*** |
Callidus Software |
$5.23 |
$9.07 |
** |
*Riverbed IPO'ed Sept. 20, 2006, at $9.75 per share.
Everybody loves a winner
When stocks soar on the wings of success, you'd expect bears to become rare. So it's no surprise when we see that out of all the stocks on today's list, just one gets panned by the community of CAPS investors. Not too roundly panned, however, as it seems few people even know Callidus Software exists. Only two analysts follow the stock, and in CAPS Land, only 15 investors have rated the stock.
What's more, only one of these brave souls has ventured to put a bear thesis down on paper. Complains jans2k: Callidus "Keeps losing money," and shows "SG&A increasing faster than revenue."
Build-a-bear, anyone?
As bear theses go, jans2k's is a decent start. Unfortunately, it's also the end of the bearish arguments against Callidus. jans2k is the only one of the four people who rate Callidus an underperformer, who took the time to tell us why. No matter. I think I can flesh out a bear thesis on this one:
Callidus is losing money ($9 million over the last 12 months) and burning cash. Sure, the two analysts who follow the stock think it will grow its profits at 20% per year over the next five years. Meanwhile, insiders don't seem interested in waiting around for that growth. Instead, they're selling shares, reducing their already modest holdings by 14% over the last six months. Put it all together, and it seems to me that the smart move here isn't to chase this stock price up, but to follow the insiders out.
Time to chime in
See how simple it is to write a CAPS pitch? Why, to paraphrase the GEICO commercials, "It's so easy, a bear could do it." So if you see a stock on today's list that deserves a good panning -- whether it's Callidus or any of our other contenders -- come on over to CAPS and give it a try.
Motley Fool CAPS: It's fun, it's free, and it just might make you famous.
Fool contributor Rich Smith does not own shares of any company named above. You can find him on CAPS, publicly pontificating under the handle TMFDitty, where he's currently ranked No. 769 out of more than 60,000 raters. Navteq is a Stock Advisor recommendation. Intuitive Surgical is a Rule Breakers selection. Constellation Energy is an Income Investor pick.