Top Five Mid-Cap Stocks: Berry, Flowserve

Each business day, TheStreet.com Ratings compiles a list of the top five stocks in five categories -- fast-growth, all-around value, large-cap, mid-cap and small-cap -- and publishes these lists in the Ratings section of our Web site.

This list is based on data from the close of the previous trading session. Today we focus on mid-caps. These are stocks of companies that have market capitalizations of between $500 million and $10 billion that rank near the top of all stocks rated by our proprietary quantitative model, which looks at more than 60 factors.

The stocks must also be followed by at least one financial analyst who posts estimates on the Institutional Brokers' Estimate System. They are ordered by their potential to appreciate.

Note that no provision is made for off-balance-sheet assets such as unrealized appreciation/depreciation of investments, market value of real estate or contingent liabilities that might affect book value. This could be material for some companies with large underfunded pension plans.

Berry Petroleum (BRY Quote) is an independent energy company that produces, develops, acquires, exploits and explores for crude oil and natural gas. The company has producing operations in California, Colorado and Utah, as well as interests in undeveloped and prospective oil and gas leasehold land positions in the western U.S. The company is also expanding into the Rockies and Mid-Continent for light oil and natural gas. Berry was founded in 1909, and had 243 employees as of December 2007.

Our buy rating has not changed since June 2003. Berry's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, including its growth in revenue and net income. Revenue grew 58% year over year for the first quarter of fiscal 2008. This appears to have helped boost earnings per share, which improved to 95 cents from 42 cents a year ago. Net income more than doubled to $43 million.