What have you done for me lately? The eternal question, when applied to stock performance, takes on a particular meaning for so-called momentum investors, those who like to select equities that already have the wind at their backs.

The basic premise of momentum investing is that what goes up can continue to go up, using the notion that strong investor demand for a stock can continue to feed itself for a certain period.

To find stocks with strong momentum, we searched our database for those U.S. equities that have shown price appreciation in the top 20% of the stock universe in the past 4-week, 13-week, and 52-week periods. But as our readers know, we always like to dig a little deeper: We wanted to ensure that the stocks on our list were attractive in other ways. Turning to Proprietary Measures

We next looked for stocks ranked 4-STARS (buy) or 5-STARS (strong buy) based on fundamental research conducted by Standard & Poor’s own analysts. Stocks with those designations are expected to outperform the S&P 500 index on a total return basis over the coming 12 months, with the shares rising in price on an absolute basis.

Then we turned to one of our proprietary measures, S&P’s Fair Value model, a quantitative stock ranking system. The model calculates a stock’s weekly Fair Value—the price at which it should trade at current market levels—based on fundamental data such as corporate earnings and growth potential, return on equity, current yield relative to the S&P 500, and price-to-book value. Stocks are ranked from 5, indicating significant undervaluation compared to the Fair Value universe, to 1, indicating significant overvaluation. We looked for those issues ranked 4 or above.

We next looked for issues with the highest score of “bullish” under S&P’s proprietary technical investing measure.

Finally, to avoid speculative issues, each stock had to be priced above $5 per share and have a market capitalization of at least $500 million.

When we finished the screen, six names emerged:

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Company

S&P STARS Rank

S&P Fair Value Rank

Ball Corp. (http://www.businessweek.com/ticker/)

4

4

CVS Caremark (http://www.businessweek.com/ticker/)

5

5

National Oilwell Varco (http://www.businessweek.com/ticker/)

4

5

Precision Castparts (http://www.businessweek.com/ticker/)

4

4

Triumph Group (http://www.businessweek.com/ticker/)

4

5

Warnaco Group (http://www.businessweek.com/ticker/)

4

4

William Gallas says he may leave Arsenal unless his fears of further underachievement at the club are put to rest following the departure of Thierry Henry to Barcelona.

Gallas, apparently unimpressed by the arrival of Croatia international Eduardo da Silva, said several of the club’s players are worried that Henry will not be replaced adequately, leaving the Gunners further adrift of Manchester United and Chelsea.

“Several players are questioning the club’s future,” he told his website. “Around us all the teams are recruiting but what is planned to compensate for the departure of Titi Henry? I will have a discussion with Arsene Wenger and the board members to find out the objectives of the club this season and what they wish to set up to build an even more competitive team.

“I am not at Arsenal to play for third place. Today I am at Arsenal but I do not know what can occur tomorrow. Everything happens so quickly in the world of football.”

Gallas said Wenger’s policy of signing young players and developing them into stars is no longer enough to challenge for the Premiership title. “It is necessary to recruit players of reputation because although the young players have many qualities, the season is very long. The young players are thirsty for victories, but Arsenal must obtain results to gain titles. If not, we will have to change policy and do the same as the other teams: recruit with more means.”

Gallas only arrived at Emirates Stadium last season after a public fallout with his previous club Chelsea, where he was unhappy being deployed as a full-back. During the row he threatened to score an own-goal against the Blues if they did not allow him to leave.

The Treasury is planning to disband the government’s controversial arms sales department, the Guardian can disclose. The 450-strong defence export services organisation (Deso), based near Oxford Street in London, has long been the target of anti-corruption campaigners and opponents of the arms trade.

The former Treasury cabinet minister Stephen Timms launched proposals earlier this year to close down the secretive unit on the grounds that it subsidises profitable weapons giants such as BAE, Britain’s biggest arms firm. According to Westminster sources, the Treasury’s industrial productivity section argued that the taxpayer should not continue to subsidise an “anachronistic” department which had gained too much influence within Whitehall.

Leaked documents seen by the Guardian show that the review was ordered in March by Mr Timms before he left the department. He was replaced last month as chief secretary to the Treasury by Andy Burnham, in Gordon Brown’s new prime ministerial appointments. Des Browne, the defence secretary, was told by Mr Timms before his departure that “he was not convinced of Deso’s justification”.

Deso, set up in 1966 when the arms industry was largely state-owned and was mainly concerned with selling off surplus equipment, spends 15m a year directly on helping British arms firms to sell equipment abroad. It also lobbies within Whitehall for export licences for sales to sometimes controversial regimes. Opponents say no other British industry is supported by such a large government-funded machine and that Deso, which is always headed by an arms company executive, relentlessly promotes the industry’s interests within the government.

News of the Treasury initiative comes at an awkward time for Deso, which is accused of approving 1bn payments to Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia from BAE. Deso runs the Al Yamamah arms deal for Saudi Arabia in return for a 2% commission. The Saudi transactions are now being investigated by the US justice department after Tony Blair ordered a British police inquiry to be closed down on alleged grounds of “national security”.

Mr Timms approved the Treasury initiative as part of the comprehensive review of spending across Whitehall which is due to be completed in the autumn, in a climate of falling tax revenues. He was “keen” that it was pursued urgently.

The British arms industry sells around 5bn of equipment a year to foreign governments with the help of Deso, which organises arms fairs and marketing campaigns. The firms pay discounted fees for these services, but Treasury officials question why the companies cannot do this themselves or pay the full rate.

The Treasury disputes the claim that Deso-backed arms exports reduce the cost of equipment bought by UK forces. It says there is no evidence of this. On the contrary, Britain bought the over-priced Hawk trainer jet from BAE purely to help the firm’s exports, when “an Italian equivalent would [have been] vastly cheaper, more capable and easier to maintain”.

The Treasury analyses point out that the reputation of the British government is damaged by “promoting arms exports to countries with severe developmental shortcomings and/or human rights concerns (such as China, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia”.

The industry argues that exports are vital if Britain wants to retain the capacity to build its own weapons.

Interest at the Treasury in curbing Deso’s role was first stimulated by a recent economic report from the British American Security Information Council, which attacked the financial rationale behind special treatment for the arms firms. Ian Davis, the thinktank’s director, said: “The undue influence of Deso within the MoD gives the impression that securing contracts for the defence industry is more important than enhancing the fighting effectiveness of Britain’s armed forces. It is time to end the cosy and corrupting relationship between public servants and private arms manufacturers.”