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Identifying stocks that deliver strong returns can be challenging for investors. In such cases, evaluating a company's liquidity can be helpful, as it serves as a reliable indicator of financial health. Liquidity is a measure of a company’s capability to meet short-term debt obligations. Stocks with high liquidity levels have always been in demand owing to their potential to provide maximum returns.
Investors may want to consider adding four top-ranked stocks, such as Roku, Inc. ROKU, DoorDash, Inc. DASH, Meta Platforms, Inc. META and Pagaya Technologies Ltd. PGY to their portfolio to boost returns.
However, it is important to exercise caution before investing in such stocks. While high liquidity can indicate that a company is efficiently managing its short-term obligations, it may also suggest underutilization of resources. In some cases, companies with excess liquidity may not be deploying their assets effectively, which could limit growth potential.
Hence, one may consider a company’s efficiency level in addition to its liquidity while identifying prospective winners. A balanced assessment of both liquidity and efficiency can help identify truly promising investment opportunities.
Current Ratio: It measures current assets relative to current liabilities. The ratio gauges a company’s potential to meet short- and long-term debt obligations. A current ratio — the working capital ratio — below 1 indicates that the company has more liabilities than assets. A high current ratio does not always suggest that the company is in good financial shape. It may also indicate that the firm failed to utilize its assets significantly. Hence, a range of 1-3 is considered ideal.
Quick Ratio: Unlike the current ratio, the quick ratio — the “acid-test ratio” or “quick assets ratio” — indicates a company’s ability to pay short-term obligations. It considers inventory, excluding current assets, relative to current liabilities. A quick ratio of more than 1 is desirable, like the current ratio.
Cash Ratio: This is the most conservative ratio among the three, considering cash and cash equivalents and invested funds relative to current liabilities. It measures a company’s ability to meet existing debt obligations using the most liquid assets. Though a cash ratio of more than 1 may suggest sound financials, a higher number may indicate inefficiency in cash utilization.
A ratio greater than 1 is always desirable but may not always represent a company’s financial condition.
To pick the best of the lot, we have added asset utilization — a widely used measure of a company’s efficiency — as one of the screening criteria. Asset utilization is the ratio of total sales in the past 12 months to the last four-quarter average of total assets. Though this ratio varies across industries, companies with a ratio higher than their industries can be considered efficient.
We added our proprietary Growth Score to the screen to ensure these liquid and efficient stocks have solid growth potential.
Current Ratio, Quick Ratio, and Cash Ratio between 1 and 3: While liquidity ratios greater than 1 are desirable, significantly high ratios may indicate inefficiency.
Asset utilization is more significant than the industry average: A higher asset utilization than the industry average indicates a company’s efficiency.
Zacks Rank equal to #1: Only Strong Buy-rated stocks can get through. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Growth Score less than or equal to B: Back-tested results show that stocks with a Growth Score of A or B handily beat other stocks when combined with a Zacks Rank #1 or 2 (Buy).
These criteria have narrowed the universe of more than 7,700 stocks to only 10.
Here are four of the 10 stocks that qualified the screen:
Roku is the leading TV streaming platform provider in the United States, Canada and Mexico based on hours streamed. It benefits from increased user engagement on The Roku Channel and the popularity of the Roku TV program. In the first quarter of 2025, The Roku Channel reached a major milestone, ranking as the #2 app on its platform in the United States and holding the #3 spot globally in terms of both reach and engagement. Streaming Hours for The Roku Channel were up 84% year over year.
As streaming adoption continues to outpace traditional cable, Roku is intensifying its focus on expanding Platform revenues. In the first quarter, Platform revenues (86.3% of revenues) increased 17% year over year to $881 million. Enhancing the Roku experience—starting with the Home Screen and key features—is the key to accelerating user engagement. ROKU’s personalized, AI-powered content row, that showcases TV shows and movies from across the Roku ecosystem, is boosting daily video ad reach and subscription conversions.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for ROKU’s fiscal 2025 bottom line is pegged at a loss of 18 cents per share, unchanged in the past seven days. The company has a Growth Score of A and a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 51.15%, on average.
DoorDash offers a logistics and technology platform to local businesses. DoorDash is benefiting from strong order growth and rising Marketplace GOV, along with enhanced logistics efficiency and growing contribution from advertising. In the first quarter of 2025, total orders increased 18% year over year to 732 million. Total orders were driven by growth in consumers and average consumer engagement. Marketplace GOV increased 20% year over year to $23.1 billion.
Strong momentum across its new verticals, particularly in the grocery segment, bodes well. An expanding clientele, driven by collaborations with companies such as Dollar General and The Home Depot, is noteworthy. DASH is also focused on an inorganic strategy to boost top-line performance. In June 2025, it announced the acquisition of the ad-tech platform, Symbiosys. Before that, it announced the buyout of SevenRooms to boost its Commerce Platform capabilities for merchants across the globe.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for DASH’s 2025 earnings is pegged at $2.16 per share, unchanged in the past seven days. The company has a Growth Score of A.
Meta Platforms is the world’s largest social media platform. Owing to acquisitions, the company’s portfolio offering evolved from a single Facebook app to multiple apps, such as photo and video sharing app Instagram and WhatsApp messaging app.
Leveraging its massive user base, Meta has secured a substantial share of the advertising market. Advertising revenues (98.8% of Family of Apps revenues) increased 16.2% year over year to $41.39 billion and accounted for 97.8% of first-quarter revenues. META has been leveraging AI to improve the strength of its platform offerings. Meta Platforms’ growing footprint among young adults, driven by improving recommendations, boosts its competitive prowess. AI usage is making it a popular name among advertisers. This is expected to drive top-line growth.
Meta Platforms expects total revenues between $42.5 billion and $45.5 billion for the second quarter of 2025. META will report second-quarter earnings today after market close.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for META’s 2025 earnings is pegged at $25.71 per share, up 5 cents in the past seven days. The company has a Growth Score of A and a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 17.3%, on average.
Pagaya Technologies is focused on building AI infrastructure for the financial ecosystem and has offices in New York and Tel Aviv. The company is expanding beyond personal loans and moving into auto lending and point-of-sale financing. This diversification will decrease exposure to cyclical risk in any single loan category, making the business more stable across economic cycles.
In the last reported quarter, total revenues and other income of $290 million jumped 18% year over year, driven by a 19% increase in revenues from fees. For the current quarter, Network Volume is expected to be between $2.3 billion and $2.5 billion. Total revenues and other income is forecast to be between $290 million and $310 million.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for PGY’s 2025 earnings is pegged at $2.51 per share, unchanged in the past seven days. The company has a Growth Score of A and a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 12.91%, on average.
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Disclosure: Officers, directors and 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 mentioned in this material.
Disclosure: Performance information for Zacks’ portfolios and strategies is available at: https://www.zacks.com/performance.
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
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