Sanderson Farms, Inc. (NASDAQ:SAFM)

Sanderson Farms is a company I wish I would have bought a year ago. Already up 5.89% from a year ago, this company met all of the criteria for a defensive position from the Intelligent Investor. It's right at the market cap limit ($1.96B which is close enough to $2B for me), a current ratio of well over 2:1 (at 3.5:1), pays a dividend of 1.02%, earnings growth well over 1/3 from the last 10 years, a P/E of 9.05, and a P/B of 1.85. While the P/B is over the 1.5 recommended, the P/B times the P/E is under the 22.5 limit. Other things that I like about SAFM are that its ROA, ROE, and ROI are all over 20%, its debt/equity is 0.01, and its book value has tripled from 2006 until now.