Bet on These 4 Top-Performing Liquid Stocks to Maximize Returns

Liquidity measures a company’s capability to meet short-term debt obligations. Investors seeking solid gains should consider adding stocks with strong liquidity, which supports business growth. 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 — EverQuote, Inc. EVER, Ciena Corporation CIEN, Lam Research Corporation LRCX and Remitly Global, Inc. RELY — to their portfolios to boost returns.

However, one should be careful while investing in a stock with high liquidity levels. High liquidity may also indicate that the company cannot competently utilize its assets.

Besides sufficient cash, an investor might also consider a company’s capital deployment abilities before investing. A balanced assessment of both liquidity and efficiency can help identify truly promising investment opportunities.

Measures to Identify Liquid Stocks

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 it may not always represent a company’s financial condition.

Screening Parameters

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 that of their industry 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 (Strong Buy): 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 13.

Here are four of the 13 stocks that qualified the screen:

EverQuote, headquartered in Cambridge, MA, is an online insurance marketplace. The company's websites allow consumers to shop for auto, home, renters and life insurance.

EverQuote is benefiting from its exclusive data assets and technology, a deepened focus on the core property and casualty (P&C) insurance vertical and a robust financial profile. It is also focused on streamlining traffic operations, boosting AI-powered bidding solutions and rolling out advanced agent technology platforms, which position it well for long-term growth. Recovery in automotive and other insurance verticals bodes well.

In the last reported quarter, total revenues of $173.9 million beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 4.6% and grew 20% year over year. Revenues in the Automotive insurance vertical jumped 21% year over year to $157.6 million. Revenues in the Home and Renters insurance vertical totaled $16.3 million, up 15% year over year. For the fourth quarter, revenues are projected to be $174-$180 million, indicating 20% year-over-year growth at the mid-point.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for EVER’s 2025 earnings is pegged at $1.46 per share, unchanged in the past seven days. The company has a Growth Score of A and a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 37.16%, on average.

Ciena is a leading provider of optical networking equipment, software and services. Its fiscal fourth-quarter 2025 results reflected a 20% year-over-year top-line rise, 69.5% EPS growth and a record $5-million order backlog, driven by accelerating AI-led demand from cloud and service provider customers.

Driven by strong cloud and service provider momentum, Ciena expects further gains in 2026. Networking Platforms revenues rose 22% to $1.05 billion, driven by 19% Optical growth on a 72% RLS surge and 49% growth in Routing and Switching, driven by DCOM demand.

Ciena lifted its fiscal 2026 revenue outlook to $5.7-$6.1 billion, suggesting nearly 24% growth at the midpoint, up from the prior 17%, on strong demand from cloud, DCI and AI infrastructure. However, it faces near-term NPI and input cost pressure but expects margin improvement in late fiscal 2026 through supply rebalancing, cost cuts and pricing actions.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for CIEN’s fiscal 2026 earnings is pegged at $5.33 per share, unchanged in the past seven days. The company has a Growth Score of A and a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 22.98%, on average.

Lam Research supplies wafer fabrication equipment and services to the semiconductor industry.

Momentum across 3D DRAM and advanced packaging technologies, along with high etch and deposition intensity (due to rising technology inflections in 3D architectures), is a positive.

LRCX will report second-quarter fiscal 2026 earnings today after market close. Revenues are projected to be $5.2 billion (+/- $300 million), while non-GAAP earnings per share are projected to be $1.15 (+/- 10 cents), with a diluted share count of 1.26 billion. Non-GAAP gross margin is projected to be 48.5% (+/-1%), with a non-GAAP operating margin of 33% (+/-1%).

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for LRCX's fiscal 2026 earnings is pegged at $4.85 per share. The company has a Growth Score of A and a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 5.89%, on average.

Remitly Global offers digital financial and remittance services mainly for immigrants. It was established in 2011 and now has an international presence spanning over 170 countries. It is focusing on new products and services to boost its addressable market and strengthen its business model. The four core areas of product innovation include Remitly Business, Remitly One, Stablecoins and Agentic AI.

In September 2025, RELY unveiled Remitly One, an all-in-one financial membership that will aid clients in transferring, managing and growing their money across borders. Before that, RELY made Remitly Business available to its U.K. customers. Remitly Business enables payment to international contractors and freelancers. It can also be used to make payments to international vendors and suppliers and carry out disbursements and one-time payouts.

RELY reported revenues of $419.5 million for the third quarter of 2025, up 25% year over year. Send volume was up 35% to $19.5 billion. Active customers grew 21% year over year to over 8.9 million. Adjusted EBITDA was an impressive $61.2 million, driven by top-line growth and cost discipline.  It recently unveiled a preliminary outlook for full-year 2026 and medium-term financial targets for 2028. Revenues are expected to grow in the high teens range in 2026, while revenues are expected to be between $2.6 billion and $3 billion in 2028.     

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2025 earnings is currently pegged at 13 cents per share, unchanged in the past 60 days. RELY has a Growth Score of A and delivered trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 127.38%, on average.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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