WTSAO about stocks trading 4

In my opinion nothing in this world is guaranteed. If the market tanks, companies cut back and eventually yields get hit. What about the folks that owned these companies before 2008. If you owned LINE at $40, you would have lost almost everything in 2008.

There is no question that these companies have performed well since hitting "the bottom". During recessions you would expect value based companies to be the best performing and the ones you mentioned are all somewhat value based; though LINE and KMP's potential earnings growth for 2011 are impressive at 17 and 21% with LINE outperforming the other two with stronger profit margins.

Even near retirement, I think every portfolio should have some growth companies even if its just a small percentage.

With that said, growth companies have done even better since the 2008 rebound. Since "the bottom", the tech sector has performed with Apple (AAPL) having a 376%+ return with iPOD mania (I don't own one and don't plan to; its just another toy). The "cloud computing" companies such as Rackspace (RAX) with a 625% return since 2008. In my opinion that lifted the networking sector such as F5 (FFIV) and the data warehousing (NZ). Online video has been popular with Liberty Media (LCAPA). Netflix (NFLX) has had a good run. Gold companies such as AEM have performed well (200+%) since 2008; though I try to avoid anything related to the commodities market.

I'm not one for chasing returns but if the company has good growth potential and the balance sheet looks good, why not? Find a good base entry point, and have an exit strategy. If you do that the risk is low.