Some of the best stocks to buy are the ones you never notice. Even though their products and services are essential, they do most of their work in the background.
We take them for granted. And while we're busy chasing the next tech superstar, these stalwart stocks are giving their investors solid, reliable gains.
The stock we're bringing you today is so essential that it might literally be impossible to find a product or service that isn't impacted in some way by the kinds of products it makes.
Plus, it's poised for a 700% gain.
You probably own (or are at least familiar with) stocks in some of these unloved but critical sectors. We're talking waste management services, semiconductor wafer fabrication, or medical equipment.
But you may not have thought about the can't-live-without sector we're bringing you today: fluid handling.
Think of just about any product you own or any service you use. There's a good chance that, at some point in the process, some kind of fluid had to be moved from one place to another.
Now, moving fluid from one place to another might not seem so difficult if you're just putting dressing on your salad or watering your plants. But on an industrial scale, it can be extremely challenging to do efficiently.
That's where the company we're bringing you comes in. It creates products that make just about any kind of large-scale fluid handling easy and economical.
To get an idea of how much this company's products impact your life, think of the paint on your car, or on the traffic signs, or on the road itself.
Think of the tiles and other materials that had to be glued or painted in any building you enter.
Think of the foam packaging in any item that's been shipped to you, which had to be produced with a customized mixture.
Think of all the moving parts that went into making any product you own - and all the lubricant they require on a regular basis to keep running.
Think of any packaged food product you enjoy, which needs flavorings, sauces, and pastes to be moved quickly and in a sanitary way.
The list could go on.
Best of all, the stock just received a top score from the Money Morning Stock VQScore™ system. That suggests that Wall Street has let this one slip under the radar, giving investors a chance to grab it now at a bargain.
For those of us paying attention, this is now one of the best stocks to buy on the market...
For Nearly a Century, This Company Has Been Solving Large-Scale Problems
[mmpazkzone name="in-story" network="9794" site="307044" id="137008" type="4"]
Not to be confused with a similarly-named baby products company, Minneapolis-based Graco Inc. (NYSE: GGG) has roots going back to 1926.
That's when two brothers, Russell and Leil Gray, developed the first air-powered grease gun to lubricate cars. Unlike hand-powered models, which became useless in the harsh Minnesota winter, the air-powered grease gun could work in any weather.
Today, Graco (a contraction of "The Gray Company") has a market cap of nearly $8 billion and is one of the pre-eminent manufacturers of fluid handling equipment for all sorts of applications.
Some of those applications are the kind you would never think of. Take Grupo Palazon y Mira in Spain, for example...
Grupo Palazon produces marble slabs, and it was having issues with storing them. When stacked against one another, the slabs have a suction effect that makes it difficult to separate them. So the company was putting sheets of paper between each slab.
Aside from the waste of paper, this became tedious and time-consuming (and hence expensive) when it was all added up. The company needed a better solution.
So it turned to Graco, which came up with the solution of applying small drops of heated wax onto the slabs. The wax kept enough air circulation between the slabs to prevent the suction effect, and it was a cinch to peel off when the slabs were separated.
Thanks to Graco's InvisiPac, with a simple hose attached for application, the wax could be applied in virtually no time, and Grupo Palazon was able to significantly reduce labor costs for storing and retrieving the slabs in its inventory.
Critical: A breakthrough technology could disrupt every major industry, and one tiny company is at the center of it all. Its stock is trading for less than $10 now, but could deliver a 471.9% gain for early investors. Learn more...
Then there's Dencam Composite, a Danish company that does the very demanding job of composite tooling for wind, marine, and automobile industry components.
As the company expanded its operations, it could no longer afford to manually mix the resin for its molds. Aside from how tedious it was for workers to mix such large quantities, the inaccuracies and subsequent waste were simply unacceptable.
Graco's VRM resin mixer solved the problem, both mixing the exact ratio of resin materials required and dispensing it on demand. This meant less labor and less waste, and the mixer was portable enough to be moved around the facilities as desired.
Finally, for those who have been in Los Angeles recently, you can thank Graco for the view of the iconic Hollywood Sign.
In 2013, after the sign had been falling into disrepair, it was restored to celebrate its 90th birthday. The restoration job required 400 liters of primer and nearly 1,000 liters of paint to cover the 500-foot-wide surface area of the sign.
That's a little more involved than painting the walls of your home. And Graco's products were perfectly suited to the job, storing the enormous amount of paint to be applied over the nine-week facelift.
Graco's ingenuity goes far beyond these few examples, of course. The company manufactures specialized products for 24 different industries, including aerospace, electronics, agriculture, and energy.
That alone would probably make it a good stock to buy. But there's more to like about Graco than that.
Why Now Is the Time to Buy GGG
Obviously, Graco makes great products with a wide variety of applications. But it's also a great company from the leadership on down.
Fortune named Graco one of 2018's Best Workplaces in Manufacturing and Production. It's the second time the company has received the honor, in as many times as it has applied for nomination.
That top-notch leadership shows up in the numbers too. GGG's earnings per share (EPS) was up 21% in 2017, and according to FactSet, it's projected to rise another 29% by the end of 2018. That growth is expected to continue through 2020.
Graco's management has also instituted a stock buyback plan, so far repurchasing 3.5 million shares over the first half of 2018. That suggests they're confident that the stock is undervalued.
There's good reason for that confidence. The stock's trailing price/earnings-to-growth (PEG) ratio comes in at a miniscule 0.1231. That suggests a rise of over 700% before the share price reaches fair value!
So we've got a company that quietly provides some of the most essential products to the corporate and industrial world. Plus, it's one of the best-managed manufacturers there is. And it's so far below Wall Street's radar that you could double your money several times over.
And in the meantime, you can enjoy its 1.14% dividend yield.
You Could Be Paid $2,353: Very soon, we'll be releasing a very simple set of instructions to a selection of our readers. Each person who follows these steps could be paid a total of $2,353 in only 28 seconds. You won't need to buy a single share of stock up front to collect this cash. You won't need to spend a nickel on anything. Click here to find out how...
Follow Money Morning on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
About the Author
Stephen Mack has been writing about economics and finance since 2011. He contributed material for the best-selling books Aftershock and The Aftershock Investor. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.