4 Top-Performing Liquid Stocks to Enhance Portfolio Returns

Liquidity measures a company’s capability to meet short-term debt obligations. Investors seeking strong portfolio returns should benefit from adding stocks with sound liquidity, which encourages 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 — Columbia Sportswear Company COLM, Etsy Inc ETSY, HubSpot Inc HUBS and Roku, Inc. ROKU — to their portfolios to boost returns.

However, it is important to exercise caution. 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.

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 10

Here are four of the 10 stocks that qualified the screen:

Columbia Sportswear Company engages in the sourcing, marketing and distribution of outdoor and active lifestyle apparel, footwear, accessories and equipment in the United States and internationally. COLM is focusing on its ACCELERATE strategy to target younger consumers through revitalized branding and strong digital marketing.

COLM recently reported fourth-quarter 2025 results, wherein net sales of $1,070.2 million beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1,037 million but fell 2% year over year. The decline was timing-related, as some Fall 2025 wholesale shipments were pulled forward into earlier periods.  

Continued momentum in the direct-to-consumer channel and solid performance in international markets were positives, while weaker demand was witnessed in the United States. For 2026, the company expects net sales to grow 1% to 3%, implying revenues of $3.43 billion to $3.5 billion, up from nearly $3.4 billion in 2025.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for COLM’s 2026 earnings is pegged at $3.46 per share, up 37 cents in the past 30 days. The company has a Growth Score of B and a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 25.2%, on average.

Etsy is one of the prominent e-commerce platforms that operates a two-sided online marketplace connecting creative buyers and sellers across the globe. It also owned fashion resale marketplace Depop, which is now classified as a discontinued operation beginning in the first quarter of 2026.

Etsy’s fourth-quarter revenues (excluding Reverb) were up 6.6% to $881.6 million while gross merchandise sales (GMS) were $3,592.6 million, up 2.4% year over year, excluding Reverb. The top-line performance was driven by momentum in consolidated on-site ads performance.

For the first quarter of 2026, Etsy anticipates the take rate to be roughly 25.5%. Marketplace GMS is projected to be between $2.38 billion and $2.43 billion.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for ETSY’s 2026 earnings is pegged at $3.35 per share, unchanged in the past seven days. The company has a Growth Score of B.

HubSpot is an AI-driven customer relationship management (CRM) platform. The software-as-a-service vendor recently reported fourth-quarter 2025 results wherein the top line expanded year over year, backed by growing user engagement across all segments. Quarterly revenues improved to $846.7 million from $703.2 million reported in the year-ago quarter.

The integration of advanced AI tools, which include state-of-the-art features, such as AI assistance, AI agents, AI insights and ChatSpot, across its entire product suites and customer platform is driving more value to customers. HubSpot added more than 9,800 net new customers during the fourth quarter, which increased the total customer count to 288,706, up 16% year over year.

For 2026, management estimates revenues between $3.69 billion and $3.7 billion, up 18% year over year on a reported basis.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for HUBS’ 2026 earnings is pegged at $12.27 per share. The company has a Growth Score of A and a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 3.01%, on average.

Roku is a leading streaming platform in the United States. The company recently reported fourth-quarter 2025 results, wherein net revenues of $1.39 billion rose 16.1% year over year. Platform revenues grew 18% year over year. For 2025, net revenues came in at $4.737 billion, up 15% year over year.

Platform revenues are being driven by momentum in streaming services distribution and video advertising activities. It is working on strengthening integrations with third-party ad demand and measurement platforms.

For 2026, Roku expects platform revenues of $4.89 billion, implying 18% year-over-year growth, with gross margin expected to be between 51% and 52%. Full-year net revenues are projected to be $5.5 billion with a gross profit of $2.435 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $635 million.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for ROKU’s 2026 earnings is pegged at $2.10 per share. The company has a Growth Score of B and a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 97.81%, on average.

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

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