It's been a pretty good year for the S 500 index (up 16.5% in 12 months), but the price recovery hasn't been universal, and companies like chemicals and materials company Celanese (NYSE: CE) and package delivery giant (NYSE: UPS) have underperformed. Over the past year, both stocks are trading roughly flat. The reasons for the underperformance are understandable, but both companies are still solid performers, and that makes their stocks good values now. Long-term investors would be wise to take a closer look at these two top cyclical stocks.

Nobody likes to see one of the companies in their portfolio report declining earnings amid a slowdown in end demand. And it's never good news when a company completes a multibillion-dollar acquisition precisely at the time when the market is weakening, as Celanese did with its $11 billion acquisition of the majority of DuPont's Mobility Materials (M) business in November.

Celanese manufactures engineered polymers and acetyl products. These are intermediate chemicals used across vast swathes of industry and commerce. So while you might not have heard of the company before, you have probably used its products in construction, consumer and automotive applications, paints, etc. While that broad-based exposure is excellent when the economy is booming, it's harmful when growth is slowing and customers are looking to reduce inventory.

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Source Fool.com