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Wednesday, October 28, 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

Patriot Coal (NYSE: PCX)

14.21%

Coventry Health Care

8.48%

Honda Motor

4.83%

UnitedHealth Group

4.70%

BP (NYSE: BP)

4.22%

There's a reason I selected those notable gainers, as opposed to other winners making noise on Tuesday, like one-star stock Vonage Holdings : Stocks go up all the time, but unless you were able to predict the pop, what does it matter?  

Our community of more than 140,000 CAPS Fools considers its high-star stocks the most likely to outperform the market.

Written in the (five) stars?
For example, 95.6% of the 742 members who've rated Patriot Coalhave a bullish opinion of the stock. In late April , one of those Fools, devilinside, seemed pretty stoked about the dusty black stuff:

Steel can't be produced without it. ... [Patriot] Coal is poised to go far once this economy turns around. They seem to have their debt under control and enough cash flow to keep them going until things do turn around. They have reduced production and are quickly reducing inventories. No industrial nation can grow without coal.

Patriot Coal is up more than 235%since that call. In fact, yesterday's double-digit pop came after the company's third-quarter results easily topped Wall Street estimates on rebounding demand for steelmaking coal -- consistent with devilinside's outlook.

The bullish lesson?
Learn to pounceon Mr. Market's short-sightedness. Turnaround stocks aren't always easy on the stomach, but if you truly believe in a company's long-termtailwinds, significant slowdowns offer the very best opportunities .In Warren Buffett's words, "Most people get interested in stocks when everyone else is. The time to get interested is when no one else is. You can't buy what is popular and do well."

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

MGM Mirage (NYSE: MGM)

12.45%

Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) 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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