Growth investors focus on stocks that are seeing above-average financial growth, as this feature helps these securities garner the market’s attention and deliver solid returns. But finding a growth stock that can live up to its true potential can be a tough task.
That’s because, these stocks usually carry above-average risk and volatility. In fact, betting on a stock for which the growth story is actually over or nearing its end could lead to significant loss.
However, the Zacks Growth Style Score (part of the
Zacks Style Scores
system), which looks beyond the traditional growth attributes to analyze a company’s real growth prospects, makes it pretty easy to find cutting-edge growth stocks.
Flex (FLEX) is one such stock that our proprietary system currently recommends. The company not only has a favorable Growth Score, but also carries a top Zacks Rank.
Research shows that stocks carrying the best growth features consistently beat the market. And returns are even better for stocks that possess the combination of a Growth Score of A or B and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or 2 (Buy).
While there are numerous reasons why the stock of this electronics designer and manufacturer is a great growth pick right now, we have highlighted three of the most important factors below:
Earnings Growth
Arguably nothing is more important than earnings growth, as surging profit levels is what most investors are after. For growth investors, double-digit earnings growth is highly preferable, as it is often perceived as an indication of strong prospects (and stock price gains) for the company under consideration.
While the historical EPS growth rate for Flex is 8.3%, investors should actually focus on the projected growth. The company’s EPS is expected to grow 14.6% this year, crushing the industry average, which calls for EPS growth of 10.6%.
Impressive Asset Utilization Ratio
Growth investors often overlook asset utilization ratio, also known as sales-to-total-assets (S/TA) ratio, but it is an important feature of a real growth stock. This metric shows how efficiently a firm is utilizing its assets to generate sales.
Right now, Flex has an S/TA ratio of 1.52, which means that the company gets $1.52 in sales for each dollar in assets. Comparing this to the industry average of 0.87, it can be said that the company is more efficient.
While the level of efficiency in generating sales matters a lot, so does the sales growth of a company. And Flex is well positioned from a sales growth perspective too. The company’s sales are expected to grow 8.2% this year versus the industry average of 0%.
Promising Earnings Estimate Revisions
Beyond the metrics outlined above, investors should consider the trend in earnings estimate revisions. A positive trend is a plus here. Empirical research shows that there is a strong correlation between trends in earnings estimate revisions and near-term stock price movements.
The current-year earnings estimates for Flex have been revising upward. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year has surged 8% over the past month.
Bottom Line
While the overall earnings estimate revisions have made Flex a Zacks Rank #2 stock, it has earned itself a Growth Score of B based on a number of factors, including the ones discussed above.
You can see
the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here
.
This combination indicates that Flex is a potential outperformer and a solid choice for growth investors.
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