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Zacks.com featured highlights include: Wendy's Company, WAVE Life Sciences, ADTRAN and USA Truck

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – September 31, 2020 – Stocks in this week’s article are The Wendy's Company (WEN - Free Report) , WAVE Life Sciences Ltd. (WVE - Free Report) , ADTRAN, Inc. (ADTN - Free Report) and USA Truck, Inc. .

4 Stocks to Watch for Stellar Earnings Acceleration

Take a company’s revenues over a given period of time, subtract the cost of production and you will have its earnings! Right from the top brass to research analysts, earnings growth interests all. This is because upbeat earnings serve as an indicator of a company’s profitability. It also more often than not leads to an uptick in the share price.

Studies, however, have shown that a majority of successful stocks have seen acceleration in earnings before a positive stock price movement.

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).

For the rest of this Screen of the Week article please visit Zacks.com at:https://www.zacks.com/stock/news/1048888/4-stocks-to-watch-for-stellar-earnings-acceleration?cid=CS-ZC-FT-analyst_blog%7Crw-1048888

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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performancefor information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.


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ADTRAN Holdings, Inc. (ADTN) - free report >>

The Wendy's Company (WEN) - free report >>

WAVE Life Sciences Ltd. (WVE) - free report >>

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