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Forget Profit, Bet on 4 Stocks With Increasing Cash Flows

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Achieving profit is no doubt a company’s goal, but having a healthy cash flow is imperative to its existence, development and success. And why not? Even a company generating profits succumbs to failure and faces bankruptcy while meeting its obligations if it has a dearth of cash flow. However, one can efficiently tide over any market mayhem if it has the cash to shield it.

In this regard, stocks like Griffon Corporation (GFF - Free Report) , Arcos Dorados Holdings Inc. (ARCO - Free Report) , HNI Corporation (HNI - Free Report) and H&E Equipment Services, Inc. (HEES - Free Report) are worth buying.

A healthy cash position indicates that profits are being efficiently channeled to the company’s reserves. This offers flexibility to make decisions, chase potential investments and fuel its growth engine. It is indeed an accurate indicator of a company’s financial health and a measure of resiliency.

Analyzing a company’s cash-generating efficiency has indeed become more relevant amid uncertainties in the global economy, market disruptions and dislocations, as well as liquidity concerns.

To figure out this efficiency, one needs to consider a company’s net cash flow. While in any business, cash moves in and out, it is net cash flow that explains how much money a company is actually generating.

If a company is experiencing a positive cash flow, it denotes an increase in its liquid assets, which gives it the means to meet debt obligations, shell out for expenses, reinvest in the business, endure downturns and finally return wealth to shareholders. On the other hand, a negative cash flow indicates a decline in the company’s liquidity, which in turn lowers its flexibility to support these moves.

However, having a positive cash flow merely does not secure a company’s future growth. To ride on the growth curve, a company must have its cash flow increasing because that indicates management’s efficiency in regulating its cash movements and less dependency on outside financing for running its business.

Therefore, keep yourself abreast with the following screen to bet on stocks with rising cash flows.

Screening Parameters:

To find stocks that have seen increasing cash flow over time, we ran the screen for those whose cash flow in the latest reported quarter was at least equal to or greater than the 5-year average cash flow per common share. This implies a positive trend and increasing cash over a period of time.

In addition to this we chose:

Zacks Rank 1: No matter whether market conditions are good or bad, stocks with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) have a proven history of outperformance. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Average Broker Rating 1: This indicates that brokers are also highly hopeful about the company’s future performance.

Current Price greater than or equal to $5: This sieves out low-priced stocks.

VGM Score of B or better: This score is also of great assistance in selecting stocks. Importantly, this scoring system helps in picking winning stocks in their industry categories.

Here are our four picks out of the 20 stocks that qualified the screening:

Griffon Corp, a diversified management and holding company, operates through wholly-owned subsidiaries. It provides consumer and professional, as well as home and building products.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Griffon Corp’s fiscal 2024 earnings per share has been revised 2.9% upward to $4.21 in the past month. GFF has a VGM Score of A.

Arcos Dorados operates as a franchisee of McDonald's, with its operations divided in Brazil, the North Latin America division, South Latin America and the Caribbean division. It also runs quick-service restaurants in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Arcos Dorados’ 2023 earnings per share has been revised 2.5% upward to 82 cents in the past week. ARCO has a VGM Score of A.

HNI Corp provides products and solutions for home and workplace environments. HNI is a leading global provider and designer of office furniture and the leading manufacturer and marketer of hearth products.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for HNI Corp’s 2023 earnings per share has been revised 11.1% upward to $2.40 in the past two months. HNI has a VGM Score of A.

H&E Equipment Services is one of the largest integrated equipment services companies in the United States. The company is focused on heavy construction and industrial equipment, as well as rents, sells, and provides parts and service support to the four core categories of specialized equipment. These are hi-lift or aerial platform equipment, cranes, earthmoving equipment and industrial lift trucks.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for H&E Equipment Services’ current-year earnings has been revised upward by 8.2% in the past two months to $4.50 per share. HEES currently has a VGM Score of A.

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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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