Top 5 Fast-Growth Stocks for Jan. 5

Management announced that it was pleased with what it considered excellent quarterly results and considers NCI well-placed in its markets and with its customers for fiscal 2009. The company is confident about its business model and plans to continue with its strategic plan of focusing on organic growth supplemented with strategic acquisitions that generate long-term, sustainable value. While an overall down market can negatively affect any stock, we feel that the company has good upside potential in any other market, despite the fact that it has already risen in the past year. In addition, we believe that the strengths detailed above outweigh the fact that the company shows low profit margins.

ManTech International(MANT Quote) provides technologies and solutions for mission-critical national security programs for the intelligence community, the space community and various departments and agencies of the U.S. federal government. ManTech has been rated a buy since March 2005. Our rating is based on strengths such as the company's robust revenue growth, largely solid financial position and record of EPS growth.

For the third quarter of fiscal 2008, revenue rose by 26.8% year over year. This increase was primarily the result of a business strategy focused on high-end defense and intelligence markets supporting U.S. national security. Revenue growth appears to have helped boost earnings per share, which improved 31.4% when compared to the same quarter a year ago. The EPS increase from 51 cents to 67 cents represents the continuation of a pattern of positive EPS growth demonstrated by ManTech over the past two years, a trend which we feel should continue. Net income also increased in the third quarter, rising from $17.48 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2007 to $23.9 million in the most recent quarter. ManTech's very low debt-to-equity ratio of about zero and quick ratio of 1.4 illustrate the company's successful management of debt levels and ability to avoid short-term cash problems.