4 Stocks to Buy for Solid Earnings Acceleration

Constant earnings growth captivates almost everyone, right from the top brass to research analysts. This is because earnings are a measure of the money a company is making. Notably, earnings are essentially revenues that the company generates after deducting the cost of production over a given period of time.

Earnings acceleration, however, works even better when it comes to lifting the stock price. Studies have shown that a majority of successful stocks had seen acceleration in earnings before an uptick in the stock price.

Future Outperformers

So, what is earnings acceleration? It is the incremental growth in a company’s earnings per share (EPS). In other words, if the rate of a company’s quarter-over-quarter earnings growth increases within a stipulated frame of time, it can be called earnings acceleration.

In case of earnings growth, you pay for something that is already reflected in the stock price. But, earnings acceleration helps spot stocks that haven’t caught the attention of investors yet, which once secured will invariably lead to a rally in the share price. This is because earnings acceleration considers both direction and magnitude of growth rates.

Increasing percentage of earnings growth means that the company is fundamentally sound and has been on the right track for a considerable period of time. Meanwhile, a sideways percentage of earnings growth indicates a period of consolidation or slowdown, while a decelerating percentage of earnings growth may at times drag prices down.

Hence, earnings acceleration should be viewed as a key metric for share price outperformance.

The Winning Strategy

Let’s look at stocks for which the last two quarter-over-quarter percentage EPS growth rates exceed the growth rates of the previous periods. The projected quarter-over-quarter percentage EPS growth rates are also expected to be higher than the previous periods’ growth rates.

EPS % Projected Growth (Q1)/(Q0) greater than EPS % Growth (Q0)/(Q-1): The projected growth rate for the current quarter (Q1) over the completed quarter (Q0) has to be greater than the growth rate from the completed quarter (Q0) over one quarter ago (Q-1).

EPS % Growth (Q0)/(Q-1) greater than EPS % Growth (Q-1)/(Q-2): The growth rate for the completed quarter (Q0) over one quarter ago (Q-1) has to be greater than the growth rate from one quarter ago (Q-1) over two quarters ago (Q-2).

EPS % Growth (Q-1)/(Q-2) greater than EPS % Growth (Q-2)/(Q-3): The growth rate from one quarter ago (Q-1) over two quarters ago (Q-2) has to be greater than the growth rate from two quarters ago (Q-2) over three quarters ago (Q-3).

In addition to this, we have added the following parameters:

Current Price greater than or equal to $5: This screens out the low-priced stocks.

Average 20-day volume greater than or equal to 50,000: High trading volume implies that the stocks have adequate liquidity.

The above criteria narrowed down the universe of around 7,735 stocks to only seven. Here are the top four stocks. All of them flaunt a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

The Cooper Companies, Inc. COO operates as a medical device company worldwide. The company, which is part of the Medical - Dental Supplies industry, is expected to register earnings growth of 5.3% and 6.4% for the current quarter and year, respectively.

GW Pharmaceuticals plc GWPH is a biopharmaceutical company. The company’s expected earnings growth rate for the current quarter is 89.7%, more than the Medical - Products industry’s projected rally of 50.8%.

Tencent Holdings Limited TCEHY provides Internet value-added services and online advertising services. The company’s expected earnings growth rate for the current year is 23.9%, more than the Internet - Services industry’s projected rally of 7.3%.

Bloom Energy Corporation BE designs, manufactures and sells solid-oxide fuel cell systems for on-site power generation. The company’s expected earnings growth rate for the current quarter is 48.27%, higher than the Alternative Energy - Other industry’s estimated rally of almost 3%.

You can get the rest of the stocks on this list by signing up now for your 2-week free trial to the Research Wizard and start using this screen in your own trading. Further, you can also create your own strategies and test them first before taking the investment plunge.