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 great growth stock is not easy at all.
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.
Fair Isaac (FICO) is on the list of such stocks currently recommended by our proprietary system. In addition to a favorable Growth Score, it carries a top Zacks Rank.
Studies have shown that stocks with the best growth features consistently outperform 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).
Here are three of the most important factors that make the stock of this financial services company a great growth pick right now.
Earnings Growth
Earnings growth is arguably the most important factor, as stocks exhibiting exceptionally surging profit levels tend to attract the attention of most investors. 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 Fair Isaac is 18.1%, investors should actually focus on the projected growth. The company’s EPS is expected to grow 10.5% this year, crushing the industry average, which calls for EPS growth of 6.9%.
Impressive Asset Utilization Ratio
Asset utilization ratio — also known as sales-to-total-assets (S/TA) ratio — is often overlooked by investors, but it is an important indicator in growth investing. This metric shows how efficiently a firm is utilizing its assets to generate sales.
Right now, Fair Isaac has an S/TA ratio of 0.83, which means that the company gets $0.83 in sales for each dollar in assets. Comparing this to the industry average of 0.71, 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 Fair Isaac is well positioned from a sales growth perspective too. The company’s sales are expected to grow 4.5% this year versus the industry average of 0.4%.
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.
There have been upward revisions in current-year earnings estimates for Fair Isaac. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year has surged 7.2% over the past month.
Bottom Line
Fair Isaac has not only earned a Growth Score of B based on a number of factors, including the ones discussed above, but it also carries a Zacks Rank #1 because of the positive earnings estimate revisions.
You can see
the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here
.
This combination indicates that Fair Isaac is a potential outperformer and a solid choice for growth investors.
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