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Lincoln Electric (LECO) Hits 52-Week High on Solid Prospects

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Shares of Lincoln Electric Holdings, Inc. (LECO - Free Report) touched a fresh 52-week high of $88.73 on Mar 17, before retracing to close the day at $88.47.

Lincoln Electric has a market cap of roughly $5.8 billion and the average volume of shares traded in the last three months is around 359.25K. The stock delivered a solid one-year return of around 48.8%. The company beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three out of the trailing four quarters, with an average positive surprise of 4.34%.

Over the past one year, Lincoln Electric outperformed the Zacks categorized Manufacturing -Tools and Related Products industry. The company’s shares gained around 49% during this period, as compared with roughly 33.2% gain recorded by the industry.



Driving Factors

Lincoln Electric’s fourth-quarter earnings registered an 8% year-over-year growth despite a 0.7% dip in revenues. The company is poised to gain from consistent focus on cost reduction, acquisitions, robust product pipeline, new launches and solid cash flow generation.

Lincoln Electric anticipates low-single digit sales growth in 2017, with modest margin and earnings growth. The company’s 2017 outlook has improved owing to the recovering international and North American welding markets.

The company’s short-term initiatives are focused on reducing the impact of the current end-market conditions and maintaining the cost-reduction actions outlined in 2015. These actions will drive growth in the coming quarters. Further, Lincoln Electric continues to remain focused on customers, and execute its 2020 vision and strategy.

Lincoln Electric is also undertaking initiatives to boost improved returns through acquisitions. In May 2016, it acquired Vizient Manufacturing Solutions (Vizient). This buyout will help in diversifying Lincoln Electric’s end market exposure, in addition to expanding growth opportunities globally.

Lincoln Electric currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Key Picks

Better-ranked stocks in the same space include Roper Technologies, Inc. (ROP - Free Report) , Parker-Hannifin Corporation (PH - Free Report) and Casella Waste Systems, Inc. (CWST - Free Report) . All the three stocks boast a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Roper Technologies has a positive average earnings surprise of 0.92% for the last four quarters. Parker-Hannifin has delivered an average positive earnings surprise of 12.44% in the past four quarters. Casella Waste generated a remarkable positive average earnings surprise of 165.21% over the trailing four quarters.

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