When the clock's ticking down and the game's on the line, which of your teammates do you trust to sink a winning shot? Sure, you could dish the rock to your resident superstar -- but what if he's playing ice-cold at the moment? So instead, you pass to the guy with the hot hand, the one who'll be deemed en fuego tomorrow on ESPN.
Momentum investors are looking for stocks in a similar state of sizzle. But momentum by itself will only get you so far. I prefer to find high-quality stocks that also have some positive inertia on their side. It's like kicking the ball out to your team's superstars when they do have a hot hand.
To find these league-leading winners, I cross-referenced a simple momentum screen with data from The Motley Fool's CAPS investing community. Each of the companies below is up 30% or more over the past year, now trades within 5% of its 52-week high, and has been rated highly by CAPS players.
|
Stock |
12-Month Change |
Percent Below 52-Week High |
CAPS Rating (out of 5) |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Boots & Coots International |
119.5% |
3.4% |
***** |
|
Lufkin Industries |
61.3% |
3.3% |
***** |
|
icad |
54.7% |
0.9% |
***** |
|
QLogic |
48.5% |
4.5% |
**** |
|
FTI Consulting |
42.2% |
2% |
***** |
Sources: Yahoo! Finance, Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's, and CAPS as of Aug. 25.
At first glance, this sure looks like a high-quality group. But, as always, I highly advise taking a close look before you throw a bounce pass in the direction of any of these stocks.
Who you gonna call? Boots & Coots!
The closest I've ever been to a major oil-well incident was the rig fire in There Will Be Blood. For the blokes at Boots & Coots, though, it's just another day at the office. Whether it's Exxon
Boots & Coots offers services that help major oil players tackle both issues. The company's specialty is helping to prevent and respond to critical well events such as blowouts and fires, though it also offers workover services that help ensure that wells are running in tip-top shape. The company's most recent quarter shows how well it has been taking advantage of the booming oil market -- revenue jumped an impressive 136% from the prior year. So, yeah, the company is a lot more than just a funny name.
Magistrate is one of the 425 bullish CAPS members helping to make Boots & Coots a five-star stock. When he recently rated the stock an outperformer, he quipped: "There will always be a need to put holes in Mother Earth. These are the guys and gals that put out the fires when Mother Earth gets angry. Which these days is often."
Meanwhile, in another part of the woods
Selling Fibre Channel and iSCSI (that's pronounced "i-skuzzy") host bus adapters to tech giants like Cisco
The reason for the run? Well if the 20% year-over-year revenue growth during its second quarter doesn't grab you, then the doubling of earnings per share certainly should. This huge jump was due to the company managing to keep operating expenses in line as it solidly grew revenue, allowing those incremental revenue dollars to fall right into shareholders' pockets.
CAPS member knightwbc was right on the money while giving the stock a thumbs-up back in May, writing: "I see 20 a share sooner than you may think I call this company one of my safe plays for the year."
Fielding your team
So do you think any (or all!) of these companies deserve a place on your All-Star team? You can share your thoughts on it or check out more of what your fellow Fools had to say when you stop by CAPS. And while you're there, you can also take a peek at a few more of the 5,500-plus other stocks that are rated on CAPS.
I think I heard a "booyah" somewhere out there -- thanks, Stuart Scott!
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