Support The Troops And Your Portfolio

With U.S. military spending now reaching half a trillion dollars per year, investors have shown plenty of appetite for defense stocks. Over the last 12 months, shares of aerospace and defense companies in the S&P 500 have outpaced the broader index by 14 percentage points.

If you’re looking to invest in this sector, research from brokerage house analysts may be a good place to turn for ideas. But which analysts? A starting point: the six identified as the tops for aerospace and defense in our annual Forbes.com/StarMine survey.

Compiled by StarMine and published this week by Forbes in print and online, the rankings name brokerage analysts who had the best track records during calendar 2004 in two areas: the accuracy of their earnings estimates and the timeliness of their recommendations on whether to buy, sell or hold.

Full story at Forbes.com