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4 High Earnings Yield Stocks for a Winning Portfolio

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Investors often use P/E ratio and other valuation metrics while picking undervalued stocks with solid upside potential. However, it is difficult to use the P/E ratio to compare stocks with fixed income securities. This is where earnings yield comes handy.

Earnings yield is calculated as (Annual Earnings per Share/Market Price) x 100. In other words, it is the inverse of P/E ratio.

Other things remaining constant, a stock with higher earnings yield has the potential to provide comparatively greater returns. This metric is also used to compare the performance of a market index with the 10-year Treasury yield as well.

For instance, if the yield of the market index is more than the 10-year Treasury, stocks can be considered as undervalued in comparison to bonds. In such a case, investing in the stock market would be a better option for a value investor. However, given the risk-free nature of T-bills, it would be prudent to add a risk premium to their yield while comparing with a stock or the market index.

The Winning Strategy

We have set Earnings Yield greater than 10% as our primary screening criterion, but it alone cannot be used for picking stocks that have the potential to generate solid returns. So, we have added the following parameters to the screen:

Estimated EPS growth for the next 12 months greater than or equal to the S&P 500: This metric compares the 12-month forward EPS estimate with the 12-month actual EPS.

Average Daily Volume (20 Day) greater than or equal to 100,000: High trading volume implies that a stock has adequate liquidity.

Current Price greater than or equal to $5.

Buy-Rated Stocks: Stocks with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or 2 (Buy) have been known to outperform peers in any type of market environment.

Here are four of the 11 stocks that made it through the screen:

Teck Resources Limited (TECK - Free Report) is a diversified resource company committed to responsible mining and mineral development with major business units focused on copper, metallurgical coal, zinc, gold and energy. The company carries a Zacks Rank #1 and its expected EPS growth rate for the next 3–5 years is 10.7%.

Cosan Limited was established as the controlling shareholder of Cosan S.A., a Brazilian company, after the corporate restructuring of the Cosan Group in Brazil. Cosan Limited currently holds roughly 62.3% of the controlling shares of Cosan S.A., which is engaged in the cultivation, harvesting and processing of sugarcane. This Zacks Rank #1 company has an expected EPS growth rate of 16.3% for the next 3–5 years. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Pacific Ethanol, Inc. is currently in the business of marketing ethanol in the Western United States through Kinergy Marketing, a wholly owned subsidiary. This Zacks Rank #2 stock has an expected EPS growth rate of 20% for the next 3–5 years.

KKR & Co. L.P. (KKR - Free Report) provides a range of asset management services to its investors and capital markets services to firms, portfolio companies and other clients. This Zacks Rank #2 company has an expected EPS growth rate of 18.9% for the next 3–5 years.

You can get the rest of the stocks on this list by signing up now for a 2-week free trial to the Research Wizard stock picking and backtesting software. You can also create your own strategies and test them first before making investments.

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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