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SuperModels
Value stocks have all the momentum in 2001
It's been bleak year so far for many companies, but not for the best performers of 2001, small, medium and large. Here are the year's winners -- and a look at which traits spell success.
Big caps
I’ve identified this group as the 583 stocks in our database with market capitalizations greater than $5 billion. Here’s a surprise: Many of the best-performing names are tech stocks with decent past growth and strong profit margins. But the valuation trend remains in place. The price/sales ratio for the top 100 stocks is a tiny 1.46. (Also note that the average gain of the top-performing big caps is much smaller than that of the mid caps or small caps -- a major switch from the past two years.)
My conclusion of this study is that if you want to start moving some speculative funds into stocks from any cash you’ve hoarded over the past year, you’re best off either looking at small- and medium-sized companies with low price/sales ratios or at large companies with low price/sales ratios and sustainable margins. Out of the names listed in this column, reasonable bets might include Advanced Micro Devices (AMD, news, msgs), Dell Computer (DELL, news, msgs), Foster Wheeler, Boston Scientific (BSX, news, msgs), Service International and Keith Companies (TKCI, news, msgs). |
