Steady Return Stock - BHP

The Steady Return Stock we spotted today is BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP), the Melbourne, Australia based metal mining company for iron ore, copper, nickel, manganese, diamonds, silver, titanium, aluminum and uranium. In addition the company also involves in oil and natural gas exploration in Australia, United Kingdom, United States, Algeria, Trinidad and Tobago, and Pakistan. As price of oil, gas and metals have been surging to new highs, owning a natural resource exploration company like BHP should probably be a safe investment. In addition according to the stock's 52 weeks chart, it shows this is also a steady stock according to the following characterics:

• first of all both 50 day and 200 day moving average have been rising steadily for the past 52 weeks. Although the 50 day moving average seemed a bit flat from November of 2005 till January of 2006, after then both 50 day and 200 day moving averages have been going up stronger.
• secondly both 50 day and 200 day moving average have been going up at similar angle for the past 52 weeks. This is another sign of a safe growing stock.
• thirdly the stock for the past 52 weeks stay relatively close to the 50 day moving average, within the range of plus or minus 15%. Although recently the stock has been more moving more aggresively and reached almost 20% above 50 day moving average, the pull back for the past week brought the stock back to a stable and steady state. Now that stock is back near 50 day moving average this should be a good time to buy the stock.

The financial statement also looks healthy as the company has been getting steady revenue growth, about $7 billion each year, for the past few years. Another big plus is that the company generated four times more net income of $4.7 billion dollars in 2005 compared to $1 billion net income in the previous year. This company overall has a very strong and healty financial statement.

Steady Return Stock Rating(1 ~ 5, 5 means highest):
1. Market Potential(Natural Resource): 5
2. Technical: 5
3. Financial: 5
Overall Rating: A++