Advice For 2010: Buy High, Sell Higher

Stock trading guru Dennis Gartman includes among his widely popular "22 Rules of Trading" the following sage admonition: "The objective is not to buy low & sell high, but to buy high & to sell higher. We can never know what price is "low." Nor can we know what price is "high." Always remember that sugar once fell from $1.25/lb to 2 cent/lb & seemed "cheap" many times along the way."

With that in mind, we canvassed the investing universe to find stocks that are at, or very near 52-week highs and still carry solid fundamentals. Should the coming year begin as the last left off, with the bulls in the driver's seat, Gartman's words will be worthy of our attention.

Resources with Momentum
Penn Virginia Resources (NYSE:PVR) heads into 2010 with a dividend yield over 9% and close to 80% capital appreciation on the year. It's also trading within a couple of percentage points of its high for the year. Penn Virginia is a Pennsylvania-based natural resource operation with coal and natural gas interests across the United States.

Cinemark Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CNK) operates movie theatres in 14 countries spread across North and South America. The stock offer investors a better than 5% dividend, is up over 80% on the year and heads into the new year trading just a few cents from its 52-week highs.

P. H. Glatfelter Company (NYSE:GLT) is a manufacturer of specialty paper products used by a wide variety of industries for everything from packing to book production to tea bags. Glatfelter stock carries a not insignificant dividend yield of roughly 3% and is up over 30% on the year. Best yet, it set new highs in the last few weeks of 2009 and remains within $0.25 of bettering them.

Advance America, Cash Advance Centers (NYSE:AEA) pays a better than 4% yield to investors and trades with a P/E of roughly 9. It's also trading within 5% of its highs for the year.

Financials Near the Top
AllianceBernstein Holding LP (NYSE:AB) is an investment management company whose stock is up nearly 160% since 52-week lows were set back in March and which pays an annual dividend of close to 10%. As the new year rolls in, AB shares are within close reach of their annual highs.

The Bottom Line
Momentum is a cornerstone of bull market profiteering. What goes up, keeps going up, so long as the bears are kept locked tight in their cages. (For more, check out Riding The Momentum Investing Wave.)

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