Teflon Temps

I'm not sure if the statistic that says Kelly Services is the second largest employer behind Walmart is really true. The New York Times published this and then it was picked up by everyone else recently.  Here's a link to the link to the source.

Regardless, I thought I would look at some of the temp agencies versus the S&P going back a couple of years.  The only criteria used was that the company had to have stock price over $5 and a three month volume of over 100,000.

And a 5-year "look-back" at ASGN (the blue line loner above)...

Here's a list of these companies in order of best to worst two-year performance...

Symbol, Name, Last, 3-mo.Vol

ASGN, On Assignment, $30.71, 370,000

TBI, True Blue, $25.76, 229,000
KFRC, K-Force Inc., $16.98, 123,000
MAN, Manpower Group, $67.01, 527,000
RHI, Robert Half Int'l, $37.19, 1,000,000
KELYA, Kelly Services, $18.86, 119,000

 We'll see if this little group, including the high flying ASGN, has more room to grow as "the economy continues to improve".  I still can't say that with a straight face.