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5 Top Ranked Stocks with Upgraded Broker Ratings to Buy Now

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It’s not an easy task for individual investors to choose profitable stocks on their own, given a number of fundamental and technical aspects that need to be considered. This is where expert advice comes in handy.

Since brokers are in direct communication with companies, they have more insight into what’s happening. So, following what the majority of brokers are saying about a stock can help you understand its potential easily.

Moreover, they analyze fundamentals of the company and place them against the current economic backdrop to figure out how the stock will fare as an investment. Also, brokers have a deeper understanding of the overall industry and economy.

Specifically, brokers analyze a company’s publicly available financial statements, attend conference calls and communicate directly with top management. So, there’s extensive research behind the rating of a broker on a company’s stock. Naturally, when an analyst upgrades a stock, you can easily rely on it.

Nevertheless, it’s not right to solely depend on analysts’ upgrades to build your investment portfolio. You must also take into consideration certain other factors to ensure strong returns.

The Winning Strategy

Here we have a screening strategy that will help in your search for potential winners:

Broker Rating Upgrades (4 weeks): The screen selects stocks that have witnessed broker rating upgrades over the last four weeks.

Current Price greater than 5: The stocks must be trading above $5.

Average 20-day Volume greater than 100,000: A large trading volume guarantees that the stock is easily tradable.

Zacks Rank equal to #1: No matter whether market conditions are good or bad, stocks with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) have a proven record of success. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

VGM Score equal to A or B: Our research shows that stocks with a VGM Score of A or B when combined with a Zacks Rank #1 or 2 (Buy) offer the best upside potential.

Here are five of the 14 stocks that made it through the screen:

Headquartered in Rockville, MD, Sucampo Pharmaceuticals, Inc. focuses on the research and development of proprietary drugs for the treatment of gastrointestinal, ophthalmic, autoimmune, and oncology-based inflammatory disorders across the globe. The company’s earnings are projected to rise 23.3% year over year for 2016. The stock has witnessed 15.4% upward revisions in broker ratings over the past four weeks.

Houston, TX-based NCI Building Systems, Inc. designs, engineers, manufactures, and markets metal products for the non-residential construction industry in North America. Its fiscal 2017 earnings are estimated to rise 37.3% year over year. The stock has witnessed 33.3% upward revision in broker ratings over the past four weeks.

Brookings, SD-based Daktronics Inc. (DAKT - Free Report) designs, manufactures, and sells a range of electronic display systems and related products worldwide. Its fiscal 2017 earnings are estimated to jump 540% year over year. The stock has witnessed 33.3% upward revision in broker ratings over the past four weeks.

Finisar Corporation , based in Sunnyvale, CA, provides optical subsystems and components for data communication and telecommunication applications internationally. The company’s earnings are projected to rise 205.3% year over year for fiscal 2017.  The stock has witnessed 20.6% upward revision in broker ratings over the past four weeks.

Wayzata, MN-based TCF Financial Corporation provides various financial products and services in the United States and Canada. For 2016, the company’s earnings are anticipated to rise 11.1% year over year. The stock has witnessed 5% upward revision in broker ratings over the past four weeks.

Get the rest of the stocks on the list and start putting this and other ideas to the test. It can all be done with the Research Wizard stock picking and backtesting software.

The Research Wizard is a great place to begin. It's easy to use. Everything is in plain language. And it's very intuitive. Start your Research Wizard trial today. And the next time you read an economic report, open up the Research Wizard, plug your finds in, and see what gems come out.

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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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