Stock Picks: Top 5 Mid-Caps for Aug. 14

Top Five Mid-Cap Stocks: August 14 By TSC Ratings Staff 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.

Circor International(CIR Quote) has been manufacturing an array of valves since the early 1900s, ranging in application from generic products for heating and cooling to more specialized steam catapult valves on nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and cryogenic valves used in the space shuttle. The company also designs, makes and distributes a variety of related products, such as fittings, actuators, condensate pumps, flow meters and water heaters, and it provides a range of services to assist customers in the installation and maintenance of fluid-control systems. Circor operates 16 manufacturing facilities in the U.S., Canada, Western Europe and China and services more than 12,000 customers in over 119 countries.