This Quarter's Hottest Stocks (Morningstar.com)

Tuesday July 22, 11:44 am ET By John Coumarianos This quarter, we've focused on wide-moat stocks again for our hot stocks article. At Morningstar, we assign moat ratings to stocks to reflect our opinion of the competitive advantages of their underlying businesses. A wide-moat designation is the best a stock can get, and it means that Morningstar analysts think the underlying business can achieve returns on capital that outstrip its cost of capital for the foreseeable future. Currently, 186 stocks in our 2,000-stock universe (less than 10%) garner this coveted rating. While our screen produced some financials and retailers last quarter, the bump that stalwarts such as American Express (NYSE:AXP - News) and Home Depot (NYSE:HD - News) received proved short-lived, as those stocks pulled back again (though we think thatâEuro_s... [read full story]