Shares of Ball Corp (BLL), Leidos Holdings Inc (LDOS) and Casey's General Stores Inc (CASY) performed strongly over the past several years, topping the S&P 500 by wide margins.

GuruFocus has given these companies high profitability ratings. High profitability has helped push the share prices higher over the observed periods. Should the profitability of these companies remain strong also in the years ahead, shareholders may experience even larger rewards.

Additionally, Wall Street sell-side analysts have released positive recommendation ratings for these stocks.

Ball Corp

Shares of Ball Corp have gained 10.3% over the last 12 months, 55.6% over the past

Past performance is not a guarantee of future results, but strong growth in cumulative earnings increases the likelihood that companies will continue to do so, driving their share prices higher in the coming years.

The S&P 500 Index reported a 9.5% average growth in its annual earnings over the past five years, generating a nearly 55% rise in its share price to $2,940.25 at close on Tuesday.

Thus, investors may be interested in the following holdings that have beaten the benchmark for U.S. markets in terms of higher cumulative earnings growth, showing over a 9.5% annual increase.

These companies are

Investors seeking stocks to short may want to look closely at the companies in health care information technology. More than 60% of the companies in the industry are overvalued, according to a report from KPMG and Leavitt Partners.

Although the report didn’t cite companies, maybe one of candidates trading higher than warranted is Cerner Corp. (CERN). Despite being an industry giant, the company has to be a disappointment to shareholders. It traded near it 52-week low of just more than $49 as recently as mid-December, recovering somewhat since then. Regardless, it is still well off its 52-week high of

While gurus Mariko Gordon (Trades, Portfolio) and Sarah Ketterer (Trades, Portfolio) may have different approaches to value investing, they do have a holding in common.

Gordon, who runs New York-based Daruma Capital Management, manages a concentrated portfolio of small and mid-cap companies. The firm invests in a company not only when it offers good value, but when it can identify clear catalysts that will send the stock higher.

Ketterer’s Los Angeles-based firm, which she founded in 2001 with Harry Hartford, seeks to achieve superior risk-adjusted returns by investing in mispriced equities in both developed

Causeway Capital Management’s Sarah Ketterer (Trades, Portfolio) disclosed seven new positions when she released her second-quarter portfolio this week.

According to its website, the Los Angeles-based firm, which Ketterer founded in 2001 with Harry Hartford, seeks to achieve superior risk-adjusted returns by investing in mispriced equities in both developed and emerging markets.

Ketterer’s top five new buys for the quarter were Dominion Energy Inc. (D), Zimmer Biomet Holdings Inc. (ZBH), Leidos Holdings Inc. (LDOS), iShares MSCI India (INDA) and KB Financial Group Inc. (KB).

Dominion Energy

The guru invested in 2.2 million shares of Dominion Energy

According to GuruFocus, these stocks have reached their 52-week highs.

Leidos Holdings reached the 52-week high of $70.55

Leidos Holdings Inc. (LDOS) is engaged in providing scientific, engineering, system integration, technical services and solutions to various government entities, including the U.S. Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security.

The price of Leidos shares has reached $70.55, which is 0.9% off the 52-week high of $71.18. The company has a market cap of $10.62 billion; its shares were traded around $70.55 with a price-earnings ratio of 24.67 and a price-sales ratio of

Mariko Gordon (Trades, Portfolio) is the founder of Daruma Capital Management. She started the firm in 1995 with zero assets. In both first-quarter 2017 and fourth-quarter 2016 the guru bought shares in the following stocks:

National Instruments Corp. (NATI)

In fourth-quarter 2016, the guru increased the position by 5.85% and in the first quarter increased it by 8.24%. The guru holds 0.08% of outstanding shares of the stock.

National Instruments designs, manufactures and sells computer-based virtual instrumentation software and hardware products to scientists and engineers. Its products include embedded control and

Monday morning, President-elect Donald Trump Tweeted:

After which, aerospace and defense company Lockheed Martin's (LMT) shares lost an initial $4 billion in market value, about $28 million lost per Tweet character, according to CNBC. Lockheed Martin was down 2.47% at market close.

Earnings performance

Lockheed Martin delivered its third-quarter fiscal 2016 results on Oct. 25. The $76 billion defense company reported 15.4% net sales growth to $33.5 billion and an outstanding 61.5% profit growth to $4.3 billion nine months in its fiscal 2016 business operations.

Company expenses still grew by 16% to $29.8 billion partially

Leidos Holdings (LDOS) recently completed its acquisition of Lockheed Martin