4-Star Stocks Poised to Pop: Praxair

Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, industrial gases producer Praxair (NYSE: PX  ) has earned a respected four-star ranking.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Praxair's business and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.

Praxair facts

Headquarters (Founded)	Danbury, Conn. (1907)
Market Cap	$28.8 billion
Industry	Industrial gases
Trailing-12-Month Revenue	$11.1 billion
Management	CEO Stephen Angel (since 2007) CFO James Sawyer (since 2000)
Return on Equity (Average, Past 3 Years)	23.1%
Cash/Debt	$125 million / $6.31 billion
Dividend Yield	2.1%
Competitors	Air Products and Chemicals (NYSE: APD  )

Sources: S&P Capital IQ and Motley Fool CAPS.

On CAPS, 96% of the 686 members who have rated Praxair believe the stock will outperform the S&P 500 going forward. These bulls include sainitaly and jpriley47.

Just last month, sainitaly touched on a couple of Praxair's positives: "[G]rowing share in Asia (where most future global growth will occur); a commitment ... to reducing natural resources use/environmental impact."

Praxair even boasts a robust three-year average operating margin of 19.4%. That's higher than that of main rival Air Products (15.7%), as well as more conventional industrial plays like General Electric (NYSE: GE  ) (10%) and United Technologies (NYSE: UTX  ) (14.1%).

CAPS member jpriley47 elaborates on the Praxair bull case:

Strong business, strong base of operations, expanding into emerging markets rapidly and an environmentally conscious company. Contracts provide for relatively stable profits with on-site production. Will be stable during recessions and will expand rapidly as global growth begins to increase.

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