Actually, SIGC DOES meet my basic criteria. That's why it was on my "watch list." But no company is perfect, and I had a few questions about a couple of areas in which SIGC appears to be relatively weak. Still waiting for an answer -- and waiting patiently, since SIGC has run out of steam for the time being, and there's no need to rush out and buy.
My method of looking for stocks is somewhat different from yours. I, too, want stocks that will go up at a nice clip. But I want them to be "virtuous" as well, so that they will be less likely to let me down (i.e., go into a nosedive). In other words, they must have good sales/cashflow/ eps growth, a good PEG ratio (P/e less than 5-year growth rate), and, on top of that, low debt and good positive free cashflow. That means they must have enough fat on their bones to withstand a recession or an industry downturn or a stock market collapse or whatever. When you screen for stocks that have gone up the most in the past month, say, you turn up an awful lot of what look like real dogs (negative eps growth/negative sales growth/negative cashflow/high debt, etc.), and it stumps me as to why anyone is buying them. So I need some criteria to weed out the best ones, which I then try to research as seriously as I can.
I'm not a trader, so what I want is stocks that I can keep for at least a year, and not worry about while I turn my attention to the Higher Things in Life. (I wish.)
Believe it or not, Western Digital is still VERY undervalued, despite its very good run this past year. (And despite the fact that like SIGC it doesn't make a very good showing in the "employee efficiency" department.) I'm not going to sell it, even if it should hit a rocky patch or two, because it is genuinely good value.
The only real problem with WDC is that, like so many other very good stocks, it is almost entirely owned by institutions (and hence at the mercy of the big boys).
At the opposite extreme, there is CVR -- Chicago Rivet and Machine. It is a micro-cap nuts & bolts maker, with very low institutional ownership, with NO analysts following it (which can be a plus or a minus, depending on your point of view), with a PERFECT balance sheet, truckloads of free cashflow, ridiculously low valuation ratios, good growth -- AND high relative strength. IBD gives it a 96 for EPS; a 95 for RS; and an "A" for accumulation/distribution. It's gone up 40% since I bought it, less than a month ago. Two caveats, however. 1) A lot of people were clearly buying into the split that took place Friday, and they may abandon ship now. 2) The company was very upfront in its last quarterly report, saying that most of the EPS growth it has experienced this year is due to an acquisition it made in December, and warned that "declining demand for automatic rivet setting machinery continutes to dampen our optimism for the balance of the current year." So.....
Two other undervalued & virtuous stocks with high relative strength I've recently bought: Engineered Support Systems (EASI) -- which is now stuck in a rut, and Paul Harris (PAUH), which is continuing to do very nicely. On my watch list: Tidewater (TDW), CTS Corporation, United Video Satellite (UVSGA), Innovex (INVX). (Sometimes I watch too long: Jabil has gone up 150% since I put it on my list in May, and now it's so rich I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. In this stock market, stocks don't stay undervalued very long.)
Yes, I have looked at ECGOF. In many respects, it looks very good indeed. But my problem with it is that it has negative free cashflow, which, given the fact it is in a capital-intensive business, is not necessarily all that bad -- except that it has a rather high debt/equity ratio and a low quick ratio. If it gets into any trouble, what's it going to do, with no cash in the coffers and too much debt already? I know, I know -- wastrels are a lot more fun to be around than your proper bourgeois types. But would you give them your money?
Hope this info. satisfies your curiosity. But bear in mind, I have only recently begun to handle my own portfolio (my "investment advisor" turned out to be rather a dud), and my "method" may not be worth beans.
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