Volatile Markets: Ride FreightCar America (RAIL)

FreightCar America Inc. (NYSE: RAIL) came to my attention while screening for stocks with high returns on invested capital and low prices relative to historic earnings -- not forward projections and guessing, but real facts. It is way too hard to predict the future.

The company designs and makes railroad freight cars, more than 95% of which are aluminum-bodied coal-carrying cars. FreightCar America claims leadership in the North American market for coal-carrying cars. Other products include coil steel cars, flatcars, intermodal cars, mill gondola cars, and motor vehicle carriers. The chart below shows RAIL's stock dropping over the last year and recently it was reported FreightCar America 2Q profit plunges, but this just presents a buying opportunity.

Note that the stock has come down from its high of $77 (52-week high is $60.07) to reach a low of $41.57 on Wednesday. This is an 83% drop, all the while Warren Buffett and Carl Icahn are buying railroad stocks. Here are some supporting metrics from AOL Money & Finance to open your eyes; The P/E is 5.51, the P/S is 0.49, IT HAS ZERO DEBT!, with an ROE and ROI of 87 and an ROA of 47 - that's incredible!

While I strongly urge you to look into this stock, I also suggest you check out these figures with multiple sources because I have seen errors in various places at times. I verified this on Bloomberg through my Vanguard service. I do not own RAIL currently but it is on my watchlist and may end up in my portfolio very soon.

Those of you who are new to BloggingStocks can check out my other stories and read Chasing Value or Serious Money to find more potential opportunities and verify my track record as well - INCLUDING ANY BAD CALLS.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm.