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Looking for a Growth Stock? 3 Reasons Why BBQ Holdings (BBQ) is a Solid Choice

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Investors seek growth stocks to capitalize on above-average growth in financials that help these securities grab the market's attention and produce exceptional returns. But finding a growth stock that can live up to its true potential can be a tough task.

By their very nature, these stocks carry above-average risk and volatility. Moreover, if a company's growth story is over or nearing its end, betting on it could lead to significant loss.

However, the task of finding cutting-edge growth stocks is made easy with the help of the Zacks Growth Style Score (part of the Zacks Style Scores system), which looks beyond the traditional growth attributes to analyze a company's real growth prospects.

BBQ Holdings is on the list of such stocks currently recommended by our proprietary system. In addition to a favorable Growth Score, it carries a top Zacks Rank.

Research shows that stocks carrying the best growth features consistently beat the market. And returns are even better for stocks that possess the combination of a Growth Score of A or B and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or 2 (Buy).

Here are three of the most important factors that make the stock of this barbeque restaurant operator a great growth pick right now.

Earnings Growth

Earnings growth is arguably the most important factor, as stocks exhibiting exceptionally surging profit levels tend to attract the attention of most investors. For growth investors, double-digit earnings growth is highly preferable, as it is often perceived as an indication of strong prospects (and stock price gains) for the company under consideration.

While the historical EPS growth rate for BBQ Holdings is 64.6%, investors should actually focus on the projected growth. The company's EPS is expected to grow 66.2% this year, crushing the industry average, which calls for EPS growth of 26.1%.

Impressive Asset Utilization Ratio

Growth investors often overlook asset utilization ratio, also known as sales-to-total-assets (S/TA) ratio, but it is an important feature of a real growth stock. This metric shows how efficiently a firm is utilizing its assets to generate sales.

Right now, BBQ Holdings has an S/TA ratio of 1.27, which means that the company gets $1.27 in sales for each dollar in assets. Comparing this to the industry average of 0.97, it can be said that the company is more efficient.

In addition to efficiency in generating sales, sales growth plays an important role. And BBQ Holdings is well positioned from a sales growth perspective too. The company's sales are expected to grow 40.9% this year versus the industry average of 11.2%.

Promising Earnings Estimate Revisions

Superiority of a stock in terms of the metrics outlined above can be further validated by looking at the trend in earnings estimate revisions. A positive trend is of course favorable here. Empirical research shows that there is a strong correlation between trends in earnings estimate revisions and near-term stock price movements.

There have been upward revisions in current-year earnings estimates for BBQ Holdings. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year has surged 25.5% over the past month.

Bottom Line

BBQ Holdings has not only earned a Growth Score of A based on a number of factors, including the ones discussed above, but it also carries a Zacks Rank #1 because of the positive earnings estimate revisions.

You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

This combination indicates that BBQ Holdings is a potential outperformer and a solid choice for growth investors.

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