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With 3 Quarters of 2009 now in the books, we thought it would be timely to provide a list of the top 20 performers in the S&P 500 so far this year to give investors an idea of which stocks have been doing well. Along with the list of top 20 performing companies, we have also provided a breakdown of the average return by sector as defined by AFG vs. the entire S&P 500 index to show which sectors have been leading the way. Also by using The Applied Finance Group’s (AFG's) research and valuation model we have provided further analysis on 4 of the top performing companies, 2 that we find attractive going forward and 2 that we find unattractive, based on valuation attractiveness, expected improvement in economic profitability and the overall investment attractiveness, which is based on various criteria AFG uses when identifying long/short opportunities.

Top 20 Performers In S&P 500 YTD (Total Return)

2009 YTD Sector performance (average return %) in S&P 500

 Here are a few companies from the list of top 2009 returns and we view these companies going forward based on valuation, Economic Margin Improvement, and other criteria AFG uses to value securities.

Other Popular Articles: 

Keeping an eye on the big movers in the market does not help investors determine which stocks are poised to continue their upward or downward movement. To help our devoted readers identify the movers that still look fundamentally sound and those to walk away from, ValueExpectations.com has scored each of the top 10 Hot and Cold stocks of the month based on Valuation Attractiveness and Economic Margin Change.

If an investor should consider adding any of these stocks as a holding for a portfolio, one should look for companies with attractive valuations and expected improvements in a company’s Economic Margin (EM) which essentially is a measure of a company’s true economic profitability. As an additional level of analysis, we also recommend understanding the embedded expectations that are priced into each of these stocks.

AFG’s Valuation techniques and understanding of economic profitability have proven to identify mispriced securities in the market and help clients take advantage of mispriced securities. Accurately assessing a company’s profitability and understanding how to answer key questions such as… What is the cash flow generated by the company’s operations? How much capital is required? What are the opportunity costs of this capital? This robust process is what sets AFG’s corporate performance metric Economic Margin (EM) apart from other Value Based Metrics such as an IRR calculation, a CFIRR or a RONA Economic Profit approach.

It is not surprising to see the list of best performers dominated by Tech stocks as professional investors in our last month’s sentiment poll identified Technology as the most attractive sector to bet on in the upcoming months and companies like DOW and EK on their respective best and worst lists as they both have been discussed recently on VE.com. Dow was recently noted as one of the most attractive stocks within AFG’s Basic Materials sector (ranked 2nd most attractive sector amongst professional investors) in mid-august. Eastman Kodak (EK) is just one example of a torpedo AFG’s clients and ValueExpectations.com readers have avoided due to regularly being on AFG lists of stocks to avoid and also a model of poor Earnings Quality (high accruals) one way AFG filters out companies likely to underperform, and more likely to encounter a negative earnings surprise. EK has consistently had a poor EQ score according to AFG’s measure of accruals and continues to be ranked amongst the worst in its sector in Earnings Quality.

The Applied Finance Group (AFG) has a disciplined approach for identifying companies that are expected to outperform and underperform the market by using proprietary metrics and measurements that have been tested and proven through time. Because AFG’s research is fundamentally derived, AFG’s quantitative analysis spans across growth and value stocks, all sectors, industries, and market caps with over 20,000 covered securities globally. Using AFG’s proprietary criteria, AFG publishes a monthly buy/sell list to provide clients with a refined focused list as a starting point for potential investments. AFG clients can then use Value Expectations to further analyze the expectations embedded in a security’s price and to build out their own model to refine an intrinsic value of a company based on their own expectations.

When searching for Large-Cap ideas, AFG’s Buy/Sell list is a good starting place as it has proven to create a significant spread in performance between companies that come up on AFG’s buy list and those on the sell list. Further focusing on companies based on AFG’s proprietary screening criteria (Economic Margin, valuation, quality of earnings, and management’s ability to create shareholder wealth) will save investors time in their research process.  The result is a target group of stocks that can help you outperform as well as identify potential torpedoes to avoid in your portfolios.

Below is a list of attractive and unattractive companies in the S&P 500 from each major sector (as defined by AFG).  It serves as a focus list of companies for investors to begin with as they meet AFG’s criteria.  They are more likely to outperform their sector peers and the S&P 500, the benchmark that AFG’s clients most often compare themselves with.

Source: EconomicMargin.com

AFG's Valuation Metric – Measures the percent to target (deviation between a stock’s current trading price and its AFG current default target price). To derive the intrinsic value of a firm, AFG uses its proprietary Valuation Model (modified discounted cash flow model).

Economic Margin - A corporate performance measurement that addresses the gaps in GAAP, eliminating distortions caused by accounting policies to measure what a company is truly earning above or below their cost of capital.

Management Quality – Assesses management’s ability to make wealth creating decisions.

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To stay updated on how other professional investor's currently view the market join our Market Forecast Project survey and be among the first to receive the results.

Investors are always looking for an edge, a way to improve their stock selection process in the hope that it improves their overall performance. Fundamental investors may flirt with the idea of adding a technical overlay to their process while a value investor may take more of a chance on a growth company. No matter what style of investor you are, you want to be sure the process you are implementing makes sense.

Because of the volatility of the market, investors seem to be paying more attention to the technicals of the companies they hold or are considering to buy. While there are several ways technical analysts look at the momentum in the market, ValueExpectations.com will concentrate on the simple, yet widely used 50 and 200 day moving averages relative to a companies current trading price.

We, at The Applied Finance Group (AFG), believe that technicals are relevant, but it is much more important to focus on the fundamentals of a company in determining which securities are over/under valued. We have taken the S&P 500 and focused only on the stocks trading above their 50 and 200 day moving averages (44%) for those investors who pay closer attention to technicals, and provided a list of companies in most of the major economic sectors that we find attractive and some that we find unattractive based on AFG’s investment criteria, which focuses more on valuation attractiveness and expected corporate performance.

However, if you do look at momentum, a variable we would suggest concentrating on is economic momentum. AFG’s economic momentum coupled with valuation give you a tremendous advantage in outperforming!

Sectors without adequate representation were excluded (Financials, Basic Material, Transportation)

Below is a chart and table outlining the 2009 year to date performance of the sectors within the S&P 500. The Technology sector has lead the way thus-far while Utilities and Financials have been dragging down the overall average of the index. As previously reported in our Market Forecast Project, Technology was also voted most attractive sector according to our survery of professional investors. These sectors are based on the sector classification created by The Applied Finance Group.

Source(The Applied Finance Group)

Source(The Applied Finance Group)

Source(The Applied Finance Group)

*Valuation & EM Change are Ranks within their sector

AFG's Buy/Sell Criteria - factors in Economic Margin, Management Quality, and AFG's Valuation Metric. In order to determine Management Quality, AFG scores management on their growth decisions in accordance with the company’s ability to either create or destroy wealth. AFG's Valuation Metric measures a company's Percent to Target (the deviation between a stock's current trading price and its AFG current default target price). To derive the intrinsic value of a firm, AFG uses its proprietary Valuation Model.

What is the most attractive sector? That's one of the questions we asked a group of professional investors in our Market Forecast Project. The answer varied from person to person, but there was a general consensus.  The majority was in favor of Technology, which pulled away by far with 41 of a possible 98 first place votes. Survey participants were asked to rank a list of sectors from 1-11 in order of how attractive they found that sector to be over the next 12 months. Technology ranked highest with an average ranking of 2.7, well ahead of the rest; Basic Material placed second with an average rank of 4.8. We've put together a list below of both attractive and unattractive companies within the Technology sector.  It may be worthwhile to take a closer look at the companies listed. If the insight provided by the survey’s investment professionals holds true, you could be among those who outperform the market.

Market Forecast Sector Ranking Results
15. Rank Order, which sector seems most attractive to you over the next 12 months?
(1 = Most attractive)

Results Have Been Ranked by Most Attractive

                                                                                              1 Technology
                                                                                              2 Basic material
                                                                                              3 Energy & extraction 
                                                                                              4 Health
                                                                                              5 Capital goods 
                                                                                              6 Consumer non-durable 
                                                                                              7 Financials
                                                                                              8 Consumer services 
                                                                                              9 Consumer durable
                                                                                              10 Transportation
                                                                                              11 Utilities

10 Attractive Technology Stocks


10 Unattractive Technology Stocks

AFG's Buy/Sell Criteria - factors in Economic Margin, Management Quality, and AFG's Valuation Metric. In order to determine Management Quality, AFG scores management on their growth decisions in accordance with the company’s ability to either create or destroy wealth. AFG's Valuation Metric measures a company's Percent to Target (the deviation between a stock's current trading price and its AFG current default target price). To derive the intrinsic value of a firm, AFG uses its proprietary Valuation Model.

AFG's Valuation Metric – Measures the percent to target (deviation between a stock’s current trading price and its AFG current default target price). To derive the intrinsic value of a firm, AFG uses its proprietary Valuation Model (modified discounted cash flow model).

Yesterday we provided a list of 10 companies and asked our readers to comment on which they liked and which they did not to see how good VE.com readers are at separating the wheat from the chaff. Listed below are the same 10 companies listed in order of attractiveness (most attractive at the top, least attractive at the bottom) to give our readers an idea of our take on these companies to compare with your own thoughts.

source: www.economicmargin.com

Investment Insights from your peers, Professional Investors - The Applied Finance Group would like to invite professional investors to join AFG’s Market Forecast Project so you can better understand what your peers currently think about the market and cultivate the “wisdom of Crowds” into actionable investment ideas and themes. 
Click here to learn more

We think 5 of the companies listed below currently look attractive as potential investment opportunities and 5 that look like potential torpedoes. Share your thoughts on which of these companies you like and those that you don't. We will share our thoughts on all 10 tomorrow.

What are your thoughts on these 10 companies?

source: www.economicmargin.com

Investment Insights from your peers, Professional Investors - The Applied Finance Group would like to invite professional investors to join AFG’s Market Forecast Project so you can better understand what your peers currently think about the market and cultivate the “wisdom of Crowds” into actionable investment ideas and themes. 
Click here to learn more

ValueExpectations.com has continued to provide investment ideas to help our readers make better informed investment decisions. In addition to finding Buy opportunities, VE.com also understands the importance of avoiding potential torpedoes given the current market volatility, so we have decided to provide a list of potential sell/short ideas from the S&P500 index (excluding Financials). These companies on our list look “At-Risk” of going bankrupt in the next 2 years according to the Altman Z-score (Z-Score), and look overvalued according to the AFG’s valuation framework.

Here is the list of 15 firms that you may want to avoid for your portfolio.

Overvalued S&P 500 Companies (Ex. Financials) with Poor Z-Scores (Altman Z-Score)

AFG Sell Criteria: When identifying possible sell/short opportunities (torpedoes) The Applied Finance Group (AFG) starts by running a screen using its proprietary Sell Criteria variables starting with Economic Margin. Economic Margin is a measure of corporate performance that identifies how profitable a company is by measuring how much the company earns above or below its cost of capital. In addition to corporate performance, AFG looks to identify those companies that are unattractively priced using our valuation model. Lastly AFG evaluates how well companies run their business using its Management Quality score, identifying companies that have management teams that destroy wealth.

The Altman Z-score - Z-score is a metric that gives insights into the likelihood of a firm going bankrupt in the next 2 years. The model was developed by Professor Edward I. Altman of the NYU’s Stern School of Business and first published in The Journal of FINANCE in September 1968. A common critique to this metric is that it was developed over 40 years ago and is no longer relevant.

In 2001, Professor Joseph D. Piotroski of The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, published a paper called, Value Investing: The Use of Historical Financial Statement Information to Separate Winners from Losers. Piotroski showed that value investors were rewarded by looking at a firm’s financial health and he showed that Z-score was a meaningful statistic.

More recently, on December 5, 2008, Dr. Altman was called to testify before a House of Representatives Committee on the condition of U.S. Automakers. In his testimony, he noted that Bloomberg, Inc. reported, “that approximately 1,000 users of their system per day access the Altman Z-Score model.”

The Altman Z-Score breaks down firms into 3 zones:
• >2.99 – Not Likely to Go Bankrupt
• 1.8 - 2.99 – Gray Area
• <1.8 – Likely to Go Bankrupt in the Next 2 Years

According to Bespoke.com these S&P 500 stocks over $5 a share, are those that make the biggest advances/declines the day after reporting earnings since this bear market began in October 07’. Included in this table is the percentage of time these companies beat earnings and their average change on report day, along with their implied sales growth expectations. The implied sales growth measures what a company needs to grow sales at over the next 5 years to justify their current price. Comparing those expectations (VE Sales Growth) with what the company has delivered the past 5 years (5 year median sales growth) is a good way to tell if the current expectations are realistic for the company to meet or exceed. The lower the expectations relative to delivered sales growth, the more likely the company is to out-perform.

On January 13th, 2009, we posted a list of companies that were, “In Shape and Looking Good.” The screen looked at the Altman Z-Score (a bankruptcy forecast model) and valuation. On January 14th, Nortel Networks (NT), filed for bankruptcy protection. As of January 13, 2009, Nortel had a Z-Score of -3.5. As we posted earlier this week, Dr. Altman’s heuristic is broken down into 3 zones:

The Altman Z-Score breaks down firms into 3 zones:

• >2.99 – Not Likely to go Bankrupt
• 1.8 - 2.99 – Gray Area
• <1.8 – Likely to go Bankrupt in the Next 2 Years

As you can see from the chart below, Nortel Networks (NT) has a Z-score of -3.5 putting it in the “Likely to go Bankrupt in the Next 2 Year” category. Looking at its peers, ALU looks in jeopardy, where CSCO and JNPR are safe in the “Not Likely to go Bankrupt in the Next 2 Years” zone.

Below is a List of Firms in the R1000, that have negative Z-scores like Nortel Networks (NT) as of January 13th, 2009. Besides Z-Score this table also provides implied sales growth expectations priced-ion to justify their current price. Those with an N/A for VE Sales Growth need to fix their business model before we begin to evaluate the embedded expectations in their stock's price.

*VE Sales Growth calculated for these firms on 1-13-09