Bobby Edgerton.

• Position: FEATURE

BOBBY EDGERTON president, Capital Investment Counsel Inc., Raleigh

QUINTILES TRANSNATIONAL HOLDINGS INC. The monitoring of clinical trials is a tricky business, but the Durham-based company, which went public last year, covers all the bases--study start up, project management, clinical and data monitoring, and analytics. Debt of $2 billion is a bit high for me, but $600 million of cash makes for a decent balance sheet.

P/E RATIO 27.8

YIELD na

BETA na

RED HAT INC.

If I could, I'd pick this stock three times. The Raleigh-based company, which develops and licenses open-source software, has cash of $1.3 billion and no debt. Android, Amazon, Salesforce.com and Netflix run on open-source operating systems, so it has enormous growth potential at a reasonable valuation. I like CEO Jim Whitehurst and Chief Financial Officer Charles Peters, and I love Red Hat.

P/E RATIO 59.9

YIELD na

BETA 1.18

RF MICRO DEVICES INC.

This company, which is based in Greensboro and makes radio-frequency...