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Zacks.com featured highlights Amazon.com, e.l.f. Beauty, Wingstop, Flowserve and NVIDIA

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – February 14, 2024 – Stocks in this week’s article are Amazon.com (AMZN - Free Report) , e.l.f. Beauty (ELF - Free Report) , Wingstop (WING - Free Report) , Flowserve (FLS - Free Report) and NVIDIA (NVDA - Free Report) .

Play Potential Earnings Beats with These 5 Top-Ranked Stocks

It is not surprising that before an earnings season, every investor looks for stocks that can beat market expectations. This is because investors always try to position themselves ahead of time and look to tap stocks that are high-quality in nature.

Why Is a Positive Earnings Surprise So Important?

Historically, stocks of companies with solid quarterly earnings (on a nominal basis) tank if they miss or merely meet market expectations. After all, a 20% earnings rise (though apparently looks good) doesn’t tell you if earnings growth has been exhibiting a decelerating trend.

Also, seasonal fluctuations come into play sometimes. If a company’s Q1 is seasonally weak and Q4 strong, then it is likely to report a sequential earnings decline. In such cases, growth rates are misleading while judging the true health of a company.

On the other hand, after much brainstorming and analysis of companies’ financials and initiatives, Wall Street analysts project earnings of companies. They in fact club their insights and a company’s guidance when deriving an earnings estimate.

Thus, outperforming that estimate is almost equivalent to beating the company’s own expectation as well as the market perception. And if the margin of earnings surprise is big, it typically drives the stock higher right after the release. Thus, more than anything else, an earnings surprise can push a stock higher.

How to Find Stocks that Can Beat?

Now, finding stocks that have the potential to beat on the bottom line may be investors’ dream but not an easy job. One way to do this is to look at the earnings surprise history of the company.

An impressive track in this regard generally acts as a catalyst in sending a stock higher. It indicates the company’s ability to surpass estimates. And investors generally believe that the company will apply the same secret sauce to execute yet another earning beat in its next release.

Here are five out of 17 stocks:

Amazon.com: The Zacks Rank #1 company is one of the largest e-commerce providers, with sprawling operations in North America, now spreading across the globe. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

The average earnings surprise of AMZN for the past four quarters is 51.047%.

e.l.f. Beauty: Zacks Rank #2 e.l.f. Beauty operates as a cosmetic company. Its cosmetic category primarily consists of face makeup, eye makeup, lip products, nail products and cosmetics sets/kits, but excludes beauty tools and accessories, such as brushes and applicators.

The average earnings surprise of ELF for the past four quarters is 69.23%.

Wingstop: Wingstop Inc. franchises and operates restaurants. The company's operating segment consists of Franchise and Company. The stock has a Zacks Rank #2.

The average earnings surprise of WING for the past four quarters is 28.89%.

Flowserve: The Zacks Rank #2 company is a leading manufacturer and aftermarket service provider of comprehensive flow control systems, globally.

The average earnings surprise of FLS for the past four quarters is 27.27%.

NVIDIA: The Zacks Rank #2 company is the worldwide leader in visual computing technologies and the inventor of the graphic processing unit, or GPU. Over the years, the company’s focus has evolved from PC graphics to artificial intelligence-based solutions that now support high performance computing, gaming and virtual reality platforms.

The average earnings surprise of NVDA for the past four quarters is 18.99%.

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For the rest of this Screen of the Week article please visit Zacks.com at: https://www.zacks.com/stock/news/2225193/play-potential-earnings-beat-with-5-top-ranked-stocks

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Contact: Jim Giaquinto

Company: Zacks.com

Phone: 312-265-9268

Email: pr@zacks.com

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