Spice things up with Mc Cormick

OK, I can't help it but I've always had a fascination with spices.  It's in my blood, I'm Dutch.  During the Dutch Golden Age spices from all over the world made many a fortune for Dutch merchants.   My stock of the day is McCormick & Co (MKC)   I'd like to share 2 charts with you.

First the daily chart showing the moving average for the last 6 months.  You can see that the stock has stayed above its 100 day moving average for the last 6 months.

As the Weekly chart of the past 2 1/2 years with the 20, 50 and 100 week moving averages to show how the stock has made a steady climb.

McCormick & Company (MKC), is a diversified specialty food company and has been a global leader in the manufacture, marketing and distribution of spices, herbs,seasonings, flavorings and other specialty food products to the entire food industry. The company also, through subsidiary corporations, manufactures and markets specialty plastic bottles and tubes for food, personal care and other industries. The company operates in three business segments: consumer; industrial; and packaging.

During the past several years the company has made 9 new acquisitions around the work including its most recent: Eastern Condiments in India . They realize that there is a changing demographic in the US of Hispanics and Middle Eastern immigrants and are adding to their product mix to fulfill the desires of those consumers for ethnic spice.

Let's look at the many reason why McCormick deserves a place on your watch list.

Technical Factors:

• 96% Barchart technical buy signal
• Trend Spotter (tm) buy signal
• 15 new highs and up 8.34% in the last month
• Relative Strength Index 68.81% and rising
• Trades around 48.86 with a 50 day moving average of 46.14

Fundamental Factors:

• Wall Street brokerages have released 6 buy and 7 hold recommendations including a buy from Deutsche Securities as recently as January 20, 2011
• Sales are projected to increase by 5.90% this year and 4.10% next year
• Earnings are estimated to increase by 6.40% this year, 8.90% next year and 9.58% annually for the next 5 years

Investor Sentiment:

• Motley Fool notes that the last 8 articles written by some of the Wall Street journalists they follow have all been positive
• Fool's CAPS members have voted 326 to 12 that the stock will beat the market
• The more experienced All Stars agree by 131 to 3

This stock has what I look for:

1.  Current and consistent price momentum
2. Wall Street brokerage buy recommendations based on growth projections of both sales and earnings
3. A wide and positive public awareness of the company

It's now on my watch list and should be on yours.

Jim Van Meerten is an analyst for  Marketocracy Capital Management.  He shares his knowledge and experience from over 40 years of investing in stocks, mutual funds and ETFs on Barchart.com  in his daily blog -- Barchart Portfolio Blogs.

Through Marketocracy Capital Management  you can have a Separately Managed Account that mirrors his Barchart Van Meerten New High model portfolio.