Based on the aggregated intelligence of 170,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, chemical giant Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW) has earned a respected four-star ranking.

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

Dow facts

Headquarters (founded)

Midland, Mich. (1897)

Market Cap

$43.4 billion

Industry

Diversified chemicals

Trailing-12-Month Revenue

$53.67 billion

Management

Chairman/CEO Andrew Liveris

CFO William Weideman

Return on Equity (average, past 3 years)

5.8%

Cash/Debt

$6.89 billion / $23.83 billion

Dividend Yield

1.6%

Competitors

DuPont (NYSE: DD)

Monsanto (NYSE: MON)

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

On CAPS, 94% of the 2,140 members who have rated Dow believe the stock will outperform the S&P 500 going forward. These bulls include screamatthewind and Scorpioray.

Just last month, screamatthewind summed up the Dow bull case with just a few simple words: "Good strong company in a crucial industry."

Currently, Dow even sports a cheapish forward P/E of just 10.8. That represents a discount to other agricultural stocks such as DuPont (13.2), Monsanto (21.6), and Mosaic (NYSE: MOS) (16.3).

CAPS member Scorpioray expands on the outperform argument:

The sector is entering the "ascent" phase of the industry's business cycle. Inflation in target markets will give producers like Dow the pricing power they covet to expand margins. Add these fundamentals to Dow's $7 Billion of cash, and likely recovery of damages from Kuwait ... and the outlook for Dow shareholders is rosy, indeed !

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