Based on the aggregated intelligence of 170,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, defense contractor ITT Corp. (NYSE: ITT) has earned a respected four-star ranking.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at ITT's business and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.

ITT facts

Headquarters (founded)

White Plains, N.Y. (1920)

Market Cap

$8.64 billion

Industry

Aerospace and defense

Trailing-12-Month Revenue

$11 billion

Management

CEO Steven Loranger (since 2004)

CFO Denise Ramos (since 2007)

Return on Equity (average, past 3 years)

18.4%

Cash/Debt

$844 million / $1.47 billion

Dividend Yield

1.7%

Competitors

General Electric (NYSE: GE)

Siemens (NYSE: SI)

United Technologies (NYSE: UTX)

Honeywell (NYSE: HON)

Sources: Capital IQ (a division of Standard & Poor's) and Motley Fool CAPS.

On CAPS, 94% of the 329 members who have rated ITT believe the stock will outperform the S&P 500 going forward. These bulls include jsGreenmachine and All-Star TMFDeej, who is ranked in the top 1% of our community.

Just last month , jsGreenmachine tapped ITT as a perfect play for liquid portfolios: 

[S]trong international conglomerate. Focus is increasingly on the soon to be gushing wells of water control and clean-up. Quality management and an industry leader.

Of course, as a conglomerate with solid geographic reach comes the stress of having to compete with global behemoths. While ITT's fluid technology segment provides plenty of growth potential, juggernauts GE and Siemens have also been making heavy flow control bets, particularly in China and India. And although ITT has earned a great reputation in defense electronics, rivals such as United Tech and Honeywell remain much larger players in the space. But with the shares lagging each of those same rivals over the past three-month and one-year time periods, ITT seems like a relatively cheap bet at the moment.

CAPS All-Star TMFDeej explains:

With the wars, or at least the combat operations for the war in Iraq winding down (hopefully), and major budget deficits, defense stocks have been beaten up pretty badly lately.

One that's starting to look really attractive on a sum-of-the-parts basis is ITT Corp (ITT). ...

ITT is not just a one-trick defense company. It derives nearly a third of its revenue from Fluid Technologies and another 12% from Motion and Flow Control operations.

Both of these divisions have been reporting solid growth. If one values them at 10 to 11 times EBIT their combined value comes in at $7.5 to $8 billion versus an enterprise value of $9.3 billion for all of ITT.

There's a lot of assumptions about future earnings and what multiple people are going to be willing to pay for them going on here, but the bottom line is that ITT is still a quality company that pays a dividend that's trading for a fairly cheap price after its recent drop.

What do you think about ITT, or any other stock for that matter? If you want to retire rich, you need to put together the best portfolio you can. Owning exceptional stocks is a surefire way to secure your financial future, and on Motley Fool CAPS, thousands of investors are working every day to find them. CAPS is 100% free, so get started!