Investors always look to focus on companies with a high level of profitability irrespective of market conditions. In this context, profitability analysis is used to identify a profitable company from a loss-making one. Using this analysis, we can measure the way a company is ensuring effective cost management and still providing healthy returns to its investors.
Here, we have used the concept of accounting ratios to evaluate a company’s profitability. There is a variety of profitability ratios, from which we have chosen the most successful and frequently used profitability metric to determine the bottom-line performance of a company.
Net Income Ratio
Net income ratio gives us the exact profitability level of a company. It reflects the percentage of net income to total sales revenues. Using net income ratio, one can determine a company’s effectiveness to meet operating and non-operating expenses from revenues. A higher net income ratio usually implies a company’s ability to generate ample revenues and successfully manage all business functions.
Screening Parameters
Net income ratio is not the only indicator of future winners. So we have added a few more criteria to arrive at a winning strategy.
Zacks Rank Equal to #1: Only Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks are allowed. With the Zacks Rank proving itself to be one of the best rating systems out there, this is a great way to start things off. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
12-Month Trailing Sales and Net Income Growth Higher than X Industry: Stocks that possess higher sales and net income growth in the last 12 months showcase better financial performance.
12-Month Trailing Net Income Ratio Higher than X Industry: High net income ratio indicates a company’s solid profitability.
% Rating Strong Buy greater than 70%: This indicates that 70% of the analysts covering these stocks are optimistic.
These few parameters narrowed down the universe of over 7,883 stocks to only 10.
Here are five of the 10 stocks that qualified the screen:
FMC Corporation FMC is a diversified chemical company. Its average four-quarter positive earnings surprise is 8.2%.
MasTec, Inc. MTZ is an infrastructure construction company. Its average four-quarter positive earnings surprise is 38.3%.
Select Energy Services, Inc. WTTR is an oilfield services company. Its average four-quarter positive earnings surprise is more than 100%.
Star Bulk Carriers Corp. SBLK is a shipping company. Its average four-quarter positive earnings surprise is 17.5%.
E*TRADE Financial Corporation ETFC is a financial services company. It has an average four-quarter positive earnings surprise of 7.7%.
You can get the rest of the stocks on this list by signing up now for your 2-week free trial to the Research Wizard and start using this screen in your own trading. Further, you can also create your own strategies and test them first before taking the investment plunge.
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Disclosure: Officers, directors and/or employees of Zacks Investment Research may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material. An affiliated investment advisory firm may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material.
Disclosure: Performance information for Zacks’ portfolios and strategies are available at: https://www.zacks.com/performance.
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