Stocks With the Best Five-Year Charts

Roy Barkwell has a hobby. The Stockpickr member hunts for stocks that exhibit the best-looking, smoothest-uptrending five-year charts.

He collects these names and puts them in his Great 5-Year Charts portfolio on Stockpickr.

Whether or not you believe in the predictive power of charts for short-term trading, it pays to look at the stocks that have had little or no volatility over the prior few years.

These are obviously well-managed companies that have the potential to continue their uptrends in the next five years.

The portfolio as of now contains 30 stocks altogether. These are stocks that have withstood bear markets, bull markets and volatile markets and could prove good hedges if there are troubled times ahead.

	Do you look at charts when analyzing a stock? Answer Here

Let's look at a couple of the stocks Barkwell profiles.

First up is MetLife(MET). The insurance company has exhibited very steady growth over the past five years.

Every year for the past seven, for instance, MetLife has improved book value. The stock is owned by super hedge fund Caxton Associates.

MetLife also makes the list of Jim Cramer's Best-of-Breed Stocks for 2007, a portfolio of names culled from all of Cramer's "Mad Money" TV shows and RealMoney blog articles and for which he has expressed specific praise, calling them the best of their respective industries. Other stocks in this portfolio include Cisco(CSCO) and Apple(AAPL).

Here's MetLife's five-year chart:

MetLife (MET)

Next up is Brookfield Asset Management(BAM). The asset management firm is featured in our list of The Next Berkshire Hathaway?, stocks that have the potential for the kind of 30-year growth that Berkshire Hathaway(BRKA) has experienced. Other stocks on that list include Sears Holdings(SHLD) and Leucadia National(LUK).

One of Jim Cramer's favorite hedge funds to follow, Atticus Capital, is also a shareholder of Brookfield.

Take a look at Brookfield's five-year chart:

Brookfield Asset Management (BAM)

Some of the other stocks with great five-year charts include recycling company Stericycle(SRCL), Indian outsourcer Cognizant Technologiers(CTSH) and others. For all of the stocks on the list, check out the Greatest 5 Year Charts portfolio on Stockpickr.

>To order reprints of this article, click here: Reprints