Coates Hire Limited

This equipment hire company continues to make a mockery of our negative recommendations. It's up 17% since issue 142/Dec 03 (Sell-$2.75) and has risen five-fold since its low in October 2001. That said, the stock price still hasn't reached the level it was in October 1997, which we think is significant. But fans of this stock prefer to focus less on the cyclical nature of this company's industry and more on good news like the recent profit upgrade. Instead of sales growth for the first half being 12–15%, it was actually 17.5%, a sign of the strength of this particular upswing. While we've missed the ride up, the last thing we would want subscribers to do now is buy in and risk a gut-wrenching fall when the cycle eventually turns. SELL.