Solid Sales Growth Makes These 5 Stocks Attractive Now

What’s the mantra for making money from the daily roller-coaster ride in the stock market? Well, there is no set rule for successful investing. However, knowledge of some of the basic strategies should help investors in taking smart investment decisions.

Among numerous stock-picking strategies, we chose a rational down-to-earth investment approach – one that focuses on the sales growth of a company.

Sales growth is an important measure for any corporate, as it is vital to growth projections and strategic decision-making. Notably, revenues are often more closely monitored than earnings when assessing the growth of a business. It’s worth keeping in mind that when companies incur a loss, albeit transitorily, they are valued on their revenues, as sales growth (or decline) is usually an indicator of a company’s future earnings performance.

Hence, the Price-to-Sales (P/S) ratio can turn out to be an appropriate metric for stock valuation. Notably, this metric’s importance lies in the fact that management has limited opportunities to manipulate sales unlike earnings.

Focusing solely on sales growth is, however, not enough. Considering a company’s cash position along with its sales number can prove to be a more dependable strategy. Substantial cash in hand and a steady cash flow give a company more flexibility with respect to business decisions and investments.

The Winning Strategy

A careful selection of stocks considering certain factors should help investors to not only build wealth but beat the market as well.

In order to shortlist stocks that have witnessed impressive sales growth along with a high cash balance, we added 5-Year Historical Sales Growth (%) greater than X-Industry and Cash Flow greater than $500 million as our primary screening parameters.

However, sales growth and cash strength are not the absolute criteria for selecting stocks. So, we added a few other factors to arrive at a winning strategy.

Price-to-Sales (P/S) Ratio less than X-Industry: This metric measures the value placed on each dollar of a company’s revenues. The lower the ratio, the better it is for picking a stock since the investor is paying less for each unit of sales.

% Change F1 Sales Estimate Revisions (4 Weeks) greater than X-Industry: Better-than-industry estimate revision has often been seen to trigger an increase in the stock price.

Operating Margin (Average Last 5 years) greater than 5%: Operating margin measures how much every dollar of a company's sales translates into profits. A high ratio indicates that the company has good cost control and sales are increasing faster than costs, an optimal situation for the company.

Return on Equity (ROE) greater than 5%: This metric will ensure that sales growth is being translated into profits and the company is not hoarding cash. A high ROE means the company is spending wisely and is in all likelihood profitable.

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.

Here are five of the 10 stocks that made it through the screen:

Nu Skin Enterprises Inc. (NYSE:NUS) is engaged in the development and distribution of consumer products, offering beauty and wellness solutions under its Nu Skin personal care, Pharmanex nutrition brand and ageLOC anti-aging category brands in over 50 markets worldwide. The Provo, UT-based firm has a long-term expected EPS (earnings per share) growth rate of 6.2% and sports a Zacks Rank #1.

Foot Locker, Inc. (NYSE:FL) , one of the world’s leading provider of athletic footwear and apparel, operates around 3,400 stores in 23 countries across North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. This New York, NY-based company has a long-term expected EPS growth rate of 9.7% with a Zacks Rank #2.

Wintrust Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:WTFC) , based in Rosemont, IL, is a financial holding company providing a wide range of services including banking, trust and investment services, commercial insurance premium financing and short-term accounts receivable financing. The company currently has a long-term expected EPS growth rate of 13.5% and carries a Zacks Rank #2.

VMware, Inc. (NYSE:VMW) is a Palo Alto, CA-based company engaged in providing virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions in the U.S. and worldwide. The company has a long-term expected EPS growth rate of 12.9% with a Zacks Rank #2.

Euronet Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:EEFT) is a major player in providing payment and transaction processing solutions to clients including financial institutions, retailers and service providers worldwide. This Leawood, KS-based company has a long-term expected EPS growth rate of 14.8% with a Zacks Rank #2.

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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: https://www.zacks.com/performance

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