Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Brian D. Pacampara :: Townhall.com Columnist
Tuesday's Biggest Stock Stars
by Brian D. Pacampara
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Hey there, Fools. I've summoned our Motley Fool CAPScommunity once again to highlight a few of Tuesday's biggest winners among the stocks with top ratingsof four or five stars:

Company

Yesterday's Gain

Caraco Pharmaceutical Laboratories (NYSE: CPD)

15.08%

USEC (NYSE: USU)

6.27%

China Marine Food Group

5.19%

China Green Agriculture

3.87%

Exelixis

3.34%

There's a reason I selected those notable gainers, as opposed to other winners making noise on Tuesday, like low-rated Motorola (NYSE: MOT). Stocks go up all the time, but unless you were able to predict the pop, what does it matter?  

Our community of more than 145,000 CAPS Fools considers its high-star stocks the most likely to outperform the market.

Written in the (five) stars?
For example, 97% of the 418 members who've rated Caracohave a bullish opinion of the stock. Less than two monthsago, one of those Fools, SeekBalance, updated our community on the generic-drug maker's compliance issues:

The FDA's shutdown of [Caraco's] manufacturing operations has scared investors away, but lots of recent capital spending and last week's press release imply that the FDA will allow [Caraco] to resume production sometime soon. Even without manufacturing, [Caraco] has continued to generate a positive operating cash flow. ... So we're pretty safe on the downside, and we can expect a big [price per share] bump with the resumption of manufacturing operations.

Including yesterday's market-bucking pop, Caraco has risen over 25% since that call.

The bullish lesson?
The most important job you have as an investor is to quantify a stock's upsideand downside. At the very least, you should always make sure you're being compensated appropriatelyfor the risks you're taking on. If a stock's potential payoffseems generous compared to the chance of loss -- as CAPS' SeekBalance surmised with Caraco -- it's probably best to take Mr. Market up on his offer.

And now for the losers ...
Of course, winning isn't everything in the stock market.

Here are five of Tuesday's biggest decliners with one- or two-star ratings:  

Company

Yesterday's Loss

Royal Bank of Scotland (NYSE: RBS)

7.85%

Sunrise Senior Living Continued...

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About The Author

Brian D. Pacampara is an investment expert and analyst for the Motley Fool.

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