Van Meerten's picks

Intuit Inc. ( INTU ) is trying to show you how easy it is to do all your finances including tax filings on-line. The products are marketed to the public and many of the products can be purchased and downloaded directly on-line. Demographics are in their favor because the youthful markets are used to doing things on line and the boomers are finding that doing tax filings using on-line software isn't really that hard. They enjoy not only the privacy ( they like to play their finances close to the vest ) but also like the math and fact check features that are built into the software.

Price momentum in this stock has been very good lately with a 7.48% increase this past month. The stock hit 12 new highs in the last 20 trading sessions and on Barchart all 13 technical indicators signal a buy for a 100% buy rating.

Wall Street analysts are looking for increased earnings of 5.80% this year and 8.20% next year. Their projections of earnings per share increases get my attention. They estimate an EPS increase of 11.00% this year, 11.40% next year and a 5 year annual compounded EPS increase of 13.83%. I like this for a long term pick.

Over on Motley Fool the CAPS members think the stock will beat the market by a vote of 441 to 30 and if that's not a good enough investor sentiment indicator for you the All Stars vote 156 to 9 to beat the market.

I'm adding this stock to my Wall Street Survivor portfolio because:

1 - I like the current price momentum and the 100% Barchart technical buy call

2 - The product line is one that the public likes and should continue to buy year after year

3 - Wall Street has 10 buy and 9 hold reports published so at least I know their firms are still pumping up interest

4 - Investor sentiment is very high so new purchases of share are likely

Disclosure: I own no shares at the time of publication

Jim Van Meerten is an investor who writes on financial matters her and on Financial Tides. Please leave a comment below or email JimVanMeerten@gmail.com

Comments: View Comments |  Monday May 3, 2010