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5 Stocks Near 52-Week High With Scope to Scale Higher

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A stock hitting its 52-week high level is perceived as a winner. And this level works as an indicator for many investors for buying or selling the stock.

Amateur investors start wondering if this level has made the stock an overpriced one. While they are not totally incorrect, all stocks hitting a 52-week high are not necessarily overpriced.

In fact, a decision to avoid stocks that are trading near their 52-week high levels makes an investor miss most of the top gainers.

A stock can continue the momentum and keep making new highs as time progresses. So, one should take a more informed approach to understand if any further upside is still left.

Here we will discuss a strategy to find the right stocks:

Borrowing from the basics of momentum investing, this technique bets on the catchphrase “buy high, sell higher.”

52-Week High: A Good Indicator

Many a times, stocks hitting 52-week high levels are prevented from scaling higher despite robust potential due to the psychological bias of investors, who fear that the stocks are overvalued and a price crash is impending.

In fact, overvaluation is quite natural for most of these stocks, as investors’ special attention (or willingness to pay premium) has helped them to achieve the high levels. But that doesn’t mean an impending decline. The factors — such as robust sales, surging profit levels, earnings growth prospects and strategic acquisitions — that motivated investors to bet on these stocks could keep them motivated if there is no tangible negative. In other words, the momentum might continue.

Also, when a string of positive developments dominate the market, investors find their under-reaction unwarranted, even if there are no company-specific driving forces.

Setting the Right Filters

We ran a screen to zero in on 52-week high stocks (trading near the high level) that hold tremendous upside potential. The screen includes parameters to shortlist stocks with strong earnings growth expectations, sturdy value metrics and price momentum.

Moreover, the screen filters stocks that are relatively undervalued compared to their peers, in terms of earnings as well as sales, ensuring continuation of their rally for some time.

Current Price/52 Week High >= .80

This is the ratio between the current price and the highest price at which the stock has traded in the past 52 weeks. A value greater than 0.8 implies that the stock is trading within 20% of its 52-week high range.

% Change Price – 4 Weeks > 0

It ensures that the stock price has moved north over the past four weeks.

% Change Price – 12 Weeks > 0

This metric guarantees a continued upward price momentum for the stock over the past three months as well.

Price/Sales <= XIndMed

The lower, the better.

P/E using F(1) Estimate <= XIndMed

This metric measures the amount an investor puts into a company to obtain one dollar of earnings. It narrows down the list of stocks to those that are undervalued compared to the industry.

One-Year EPS Growth F(1)/F(0) >= XIndMed

This helps choose stocks that have higher growth rates than the industry. This is a meaningful indicator, as decent earnings growth adds to investor optimism.

Zacks Rank = 1

No screening is complete without our proven Zacks Rank, which has proved its worth since inception. It is a fundamental truth that stocks with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or 2 (Buy) have always managed to brave adversities and beat the market. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Current Price >= 5

This parameter will help screen stocks that are trading at $5 or higher.

Volume – 20 days (shares) >= 100000

Inclusion of this metric ensures that there is a substantial volume of shares, so trading is easier.

Here are five of the 17 stocks that made it through the screen:

Daqo New Energy Corp. (DQ - Free Report) is engaged in the manufacture and sale of high-quality polysilicon to photovoltaic product manufacturers. The company has an average positive earnings surprise of 23.2% for the trailing four quarters.

Kennametal Inc. (KMT - Free Report) provides wear-resistant products, application engineering, and services of material science to the industrial production, transportation, earthworks, energy, construction, process industries, and aerospace sectors worldwide. We note that the company has beaten the Zacks Consensus Estimate thrice in the preceding four quarters, delivering an average positive earnings surprise of 20.6%.

St. Louis, MO-based Stifel Financial Corp. (SF - Free Report) is a financial services and bank holding company. The company has an average four-quarter positive earnings surprise of 8.1%.

SORL Auto Parts, Inc. , headquartered in China, specializes in the development, production and distribution of automotive brake systems and other key safety related auto parts. The company's customer base consists of original equipment manufacturers, aftermarket distributors and international customers. The company has topped the Zacks Consensus Estimate thrice in the trailing four quarters with an average four-quarter positive earnings surprise of 101.8%.

Acushnet Holdings Corp. (GOLF - Free Report) : Acushnet Holdings is a worldwide developer, manufacturer and distributor of golf products. It has an average positive earnings surprise of 11.6% for the preceding four quarters.

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.

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 trial to the Research Wizard 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.

Click here to sign up for a free trial to the Research Wizard today.


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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