5 stocks you can buy and hold

By Matt Koppenheffer, The Motley Fool

Investments that have been successful over the long term almost assuredly share at least one thing in common -- growth. You'll find very few companies that have failed to increase their earnings and yet still produce good returns for shareholders.

Think about it this way: Dividends aside, investors gain when a company's stock price goes up. The stock price is typically driven by two levers -- earnings and the multiple that investors are willing to pay for those earnings.

Because earnings multiples tend to fluctuate within a range, long-term investors should have a keen focus on the company's ability to increase earnings.

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Does it seem too simple? Maybe keeping it simple is a good plan sometimes. After all, as investor Martin Whitman, manager of Third Avenue Value Fund (TAVFX), has put it:

"Based on my own personal experience -- both as an investor in recent years and an expert witness in years past -- rarely do more than three or four variables really count. Everything else is noise."

With that in mind, I've dug up five stocks that analysts expect will notch long-term earnings growth of 10% or better. I've also pulled up the CAPS rating for each stock to show what the 135,000-member MSN CAPS community thinks of each company's prospects.

Stocks that could grow on you

Company	Sector	Analysts' projected growth rate	Forward P/E	Earnings per share	CAPS rating
Google	Online search	23%	20.9	$13.67	***
Nuance Communications	Speech and imaging software	18%	15.2	($0.03)	****
American Oriental Bioengineering	Pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals	16%	5.2	$0.58	*****
Joy Global	Coal-mining equipment	12%	17.1	$4.15	*****
Marvell Technology	Semiconductors	16%	27.3	$0.06	***

Wall Street analysts aren't known for their supernatural forecasting skills, so these estimates may not all pan out. However, this list may be a good place to start your research.

Each stock's CAPS page can help; you'll get the company's financial reports, be able to scrutinize key data and charts, and find the comments your fellow investors have made. Turn to member blogs for insight and opinion. And the CAPS stock screener tool lets you find companies that satisfy your investment criteria.

Dig deep

I'll help you get started with some thoughts on Joy Global (JOYG, news, msgs), a maker of giant shovels, drills and draglines used mostly to extract coal but also used in the mining of copper, iron ore and other commodities.

Clean or not, coal is the dominant source of electricity in the United States and around the world. And that fact promises to keep coal miners like Peabody Energy (BTU, news, msgs) and Arch Coal (ACI, news, msgs) busy.

Of course, it would be tough for Peabody or Arch to do too much of anything without the machinery made by Joy Global's subsidiaries, Joy Mining Machinery and P&H Mining Equipment, the world leaders in the manufacture of underground and surface-mining equipment, respectively.

To put it simply, as the world's population grows and emerging-market economies continue to develop, more electricity -- which means more coal -- will be needed. That means miners will continue to punch in orders for Joy Global's equipment.

A home base in Milwaukee, Wis., is perfect for a company that makes coal-mining machinery, as the United States is often referred to as the Saudi Arabia of coal. True to its name, though, Joy Global is taking advantage of opportunities around the world.

Joy has significant coal reserves in each of the other top-five countries -- India, China, Russia and Australia. In its most recent quarter, slightly more than half of the company's sales were generated outside of the United States.

For Joy Global investors, the company's fiscal-second-quarter financial results provided good news. Joy's sales crept up 9.5%, but the bottom line jumped 67%, and per-share earnings significantly topped analyst estimates.

Perhaps even better, management said that while it expects revenue for 2009 to be in the lower half of its guidance range, it sees cost efficiencies boosting net income into the upper half of the projected range.

It'd be tough for CAPS members to be much more positive about Joy Global. With 1,421 outperform ratings against just 26 underperform ratings, the stock is a solid five-star pick. One of the many CAPS All-Stars who have given Joy a thumbs-up is "bradford86," who recently pitched the stock to the community.

"(T)he company has shown strength even in a very tough economy, (has) a relatively small amount of long-term debt, and eventually commodity prices will begin to rebound," the CAPS participant wrote. "They are doing the right things to make it through this rough patch, . . . (and) Joy Global is still an appealing long-term value."

Do these stocks have what it takes to post solid growth in this economy? Or have analysts been too optimistic? Head over to CAPS and let your views be known. Your opinion counts.