Don't be chicken to buy Tyson

When I begin to search for new stocks I always begin the same way using Barchart to run a list of the stocks having recent price appreciation and then sorting for the stocks that have had the most frequent price appreciations in the last 20 trading sessions. I then run through a sorting process to weed the list down further. My pick for today is Tyson Foods Inc (TSN) .

I'll go into the reasons in a moment. I don't know about you but I am eating a lot more chicken. Many of my friends are eating less red meat and those that haven't gone over to the dark side and become total vegetarians are restricting themselves to fish and chicken. Having been raised in the south I like chicken just about any way you can fix it: grilled, fried, baked, but I still like it with the skin on -- I'm not totally nuts yet.

Tyson Foods, Inc. is an integrated producer, processor and marketer of chicken and poultry-based food products. Tyson supplies chicken products through food service, retail grocery stores, club stores and international distribution channels. The core business is chicken in the United States; but they also make corn and flour tortillas under the Mexican Original brand and through its subsidiary Cobb Vantress, a chicken breeding stock supplier. If you haven't heard of the brand you don't eat chicken.

The stock is on my list because it has hit new highs in 12 of the last trading sessions and is 5 for 5 recently. The stock had a 22.45% price appreciation in the last 30 days and has 13 of 13 buy signals on Barchart's technical indicators for a 100% buy rating.

Of the 13 analysts following the stock 11 have revised their next years EPS estimates in the last 7 days. The consensus is for a 4.2% revenue growth next year coupled with a 5.1% increase in earning per share. They estimate a 8.5% compounded EPS growth for the next 5 years. Brokerage analysts give the stock 6 buy and 7 hold recommendations.

Short interest has also been decreasing from a high of 14 million shares last year down to 9 million at the end of January.

Just to double check my research I went over on Motley Fool and the CAPS members think the stock will outperform the market by a vote of 191 to 72 with the All Stars in agreement 55 to 15.

This is what I look for in a stock:

• The stock is having price appreciation in more than 50% of the recent trading sessions
• There is interest on Wall Street and the analysts are predicting increasing revenue and earnings
• Some other sites following the stock are not betting against it

Tyson Foods (TSN) might make a good addition to your portfolio. First research it yourself and see if it fits the rules you've set for yourself on risk and diversification. As always put in a stop loss at either a percentage drop or a daily moving average and monitor your portfolio on a regular basis.

Jim Van Meerten is an investor who writes on financial matters here and on Financial Tides. Please leave a comment below or email JimVanMeerten@gmail.com.

Disclosure: no position at the time of publication