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. However, it isn't easy to find a great growth stock.
By their very nature, these stocks carry above-average risk and volatility. Moreover, if a company's growth story is over or nearing its end, betting on it 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.
Our proprietary system currently recommends Gibraltar Industries (ROCK) as one such stock. This company not only has a favorable Growth Score, but also carries a top Zacks Rank.
Research shows that stocks carrying the best growth features consistently beat 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).
While there are numerous reasons why the stock of this building-products company is a great growth pick right now, we have highlighted three of the most important factors below:
Earnings Growth
Arguably nothing is more important than earnings growth, as surging profit levels is what most investors are after. And for growth investors, double-digit earnings growth is definitely preferable, and often an indication of strong prospects (and stock price gains) for the company under consideration.
While the historical EPS growth rate for Gibraltar Industries is 11%, investors should actually focus on the projected growth. The company's EPS is expected to grow 15.8% this year, crushing the industry average, which calls for EPS growth of 6.8%.
Impressive Asset Utilization Ratio
Growth investors often overlook asset utilization ratio, also known as sales-to-total-assets (S/TA) ratio, but it is an important feature of a real growth stock. This metric exhibits how efficiently a firm is utilizing its assets to generate sales.
Right now, Gibraltar Industries has an S/TA ratio of 0.92, which means that the company gets $0.92 in sales for each dollar in assets. Comparing this to the industry average of 0.81, 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 Gibraltar Industries looks attractive from a sales growth perspective as well. The company's sales are expected to grow 9.3% this year versus the industry average of 0.9%.
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.
The current-year earnings estimates for Gibraltar Industries have been revising upward. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year has surged 0.2% over the past month.
Bottom Line
While the overall earnings estimate revisions have made Gibraltar Industries a Zacks Rank #2 stock, it has earned itself a Growth Score of B based on a number of factors, including the ones discussed above.
You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
This combination indicates that Gibraltar Industries is a potential outperformer and a solid choice for growth investors.
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Gibraltar Industries, Inc. (ROCK): Free Stock Analysis ReportThis article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
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