5 Stocks With Exciting Price-to-Cash-Flow Ratios

Value style is generally considered to be one of the best practices when it comes to stock picking. In value investing, investors pick stocks that are cheap but fundamentally strong. So the chance of these stocks allowing investors to book profit is high when the market moves higher. The concept is fairly straight forward; find stocks that are trading below their inherent worth.

There are a number of ratios to identify value stocks, but none of them can conclusively determine a stock’s inherent potential alone. Each ratio helps the investor to understand a particular aspect of the company’s business. One such ratio, Price to Cash Flow (or P/CF), can do wonders if used properly in picking stocks.

This metric evaluates the market price of a stock relative to the amount of cash flow that the company is generating on a per-share basis. One of the important factors that gives P/CF an upper hand is that operating cash flow adds back non-cash charges such as depreciation and amortization to net income, reflecting the true financial health of the company.

However, an investment decision solely based on P/CF metric may not fetch the desired results. To identify stocks that are trading at a discount, you should expand your search criteria and take into account price-to-book ratio, price-to-earnings ratio and price-to-sales ratio. Adding a favorable Zacks Rank and a Value Score of “A” or “B” to your search criteria should give you even better results, as they eliminate the chance of falling into a value trap.

The Bargain Hunting Strategy

Let’s quickly go through the parameters for selecting true value stocks before running the screen.

P/CF less than or equal to X-Industry Medianremains our first parameter.

Price greater than or equal to 5:The stocks must all be trading at a minimum of $5 or higher.

Average 20-Day Volume greater than 100,000:A substantial trading volume ensures that the stock is easily tradable.

P/E using (F1) less than or equal to X-Industry Median:This parameter shortlists stocks that are trading at a discount or equal to their peers.

P/B less than or equal to X-Industry Median:A lower P/B compared with the industry average implies that there is enough room for the stock to gain.

P/S less than or equal to X-Industry Median: The P/S ratio determines how a stock price compares to the company’s sales, lower the ratio the more attractive the stock is.

PEG less than 1:The ratio is used to conclude a stock's value by taking the company's earnings growth into account. PEG ratio portrays a more complete picture than the P/E ratio. A value of less than 1 indicates that stock is undervalued and investors need to pay less for a stock that has robust earnings growth prospect.

Zacks Rank less than or equal to 2:Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or 2 (Buy) stocks are known to outperform irrespective of the market environment.

Value Score of less than or equal to B: Our research shows that stocks with a Style Score of ‘A’ or ‘B’ when combined with Zacks Rank #1 or 2 offer the best upside potential.

Here are five of the 18 stocks that qualified the screening:

Kirkland's Inc. ( (NASDAQ:KIRK) )

JinkoSolar Holding Co., Ltd. ( (NYSE:JKS) )

General Motors Company ( (NYSE:GM) )

Ford Motor Co. ( (NYSE:F) )

Carnival (LON:CCL) plc ( (NYSE:CUK) )

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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: http://www.zacks.com/performance.

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