Get Ready for the Fall?

"The bigger they are, the harder they fall." It's the worst nightmare of every investor in today's market -- buying a rocket stock just before it takes a nosedive.

Every day, WSJ.com publishes a list of stocks whose shares have just hit new 52-week highs. And every day, investors read the list and tremble -- some with greed, others with terror. On our Motley Fool CAPS investing community, these top stocks usually enjoy favorable ratings, since everyone loves a winner.

But not always...

Companies are selected from the "New Highs & Lows" lists published on WSJ.com on Friday last week. 52-week low and recent price provided by Yahoo! Finance. CAPS ratings from Motley Fool CAPS.

Everybody loves a winner
And really, how can you not love these stocks? This week's market surge lifted some of the biggest names out of the S&P 500 and placed them atop new 52-week highs. I mean: Coke, Tyco, Disney, Altria, and Dow? Stocks just don't get any blue-chippier than these...

But hold up a sec! Who's this upstart "K-Tron International" leading the pack?

The company may sound like a character from the Transformers movie, but it's actually a leader in the market for "materials handling equipment," a Motley Fool Hidden Gems recommendation, and our top-ranked stock this week. Let's learn a little more about it.

The bull case for K-Tron International
CAPS All-Star jagdme first spotted K-Tron back in April, attracted by the company's "[s]trong growth in sales, earnings, book value, plus declining debt and strong cash position. ROIC over 10% for years and recently accelerating."

Fellow All-Star investor SuperCharge reminds us that K-Tron made the grade as one of "2008 Forbes America's 200 Best Small Companies, and 53rd in the 2008 Fortune 100 Fastest Growing Companies." SuperCharge expects a "weakening dollar to push this company's earnings up much faster than the S&P."

And despite its "5-year annual growth rate of 35.2%," MizzouFanVan points out that the company still enjoys "[n]o analyst coverage," but predicts it "won't always be that way."

I agree. Eventually, Wall Street will notice K-Tron's performance. Will you want to be an owner when that happens?

Is the past prelude?
Since the stock lacks significant coverage today, it's hard for us as individual investors to know how fast K-Tron might grow going forward. (The single analyst following the stock predicts 38% profit growth next year, but what happens after that is anybody's guess.)

We do know that right now, K-Tron is a profit-making machine. Trailing profit as calculated under GAAP come to $22.7 million, with most of that backed up by cold, hard, free cash. Free cash flow in the 12 months leading up to the July quarter totaled an even $22 million. Thus, the stock's P/E and price-to-free cash flow ratios both fall below 14. Not bad for a stock that's grown its profit at better than 35% per year for the last half-decade.

Time to chime in
When you consider further that K-Tron's biggest rival, Badger Meter (NYSE:BMI), sports a weaker balance sheet than K-Tron, and that its other close rival, Keithley Instruments, is losing money and burning cash, K-Tron's future success looks very much in its own hands. Seems to me, this game is K-Tron's to lose.

But that's just my opinion. We'd really like to know what you think about K-Tron International. Will the global recession catch up to this company and lay it low? Or will K-Tron just keep on succeeding? If you've got an opinion, we've got a place to share it.

Motley Fool CAPS : It's fun, it's free, and it just might make you famous.