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Buy These 4 Stocks with Increasing Cash Flows

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Cash is the lifeblood of any business. It offers strength, vitality and flexibility to make investment decisions as well as the fuel to run its growth engine. Moreover, cash shields a company from market turmoil and indicates that profits are being channelized in the right direction.

In fact, to invest in the right stocks, one must go beyond profit numbers and look at a company’s efficiency in generating cash flows. This is because even a profit-making company can have a dearth of cash flow and fail to meet its obligations. But a company’s resiliency can be fairly judged when its efficacy in generating cash flows is assessed.

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

If a company is experiencing a positive cash flow then it denotes an increase in its liquid assets, which gives it the means to meet debt obligations, shell out for expenses, reinvest in 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, positive cash flow alone is not sufficient to predict a company’s future growth. A company can competently grow only when this positive cash flow is rising. Increasing cash flow indicates management’s efficiency in regulating its cash movements and less dependency on outside financing for running its business.

So while picking stocks, go beyond profits and make sure to look for companies with dependable and increasing 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 individual industry categories.

Here are four out of the eight stocks that qualified the screening:

SP Plus Corporation (SP - Free Report) , based in Chicago, provides professional parking, ground transportation, facility maintenance, security and event logistics services to property owners and managers in all markets of the real estate industry. The company has a VGM score of A. Moreover, it has an expected long-term growth rate of 11.5%.

Also, SP Plus logged in a return of 21.1% over the past three months, which is way better than the 6.2% gain witnessed by the Zacks categorized Consumer Services - Miscellaneous industry.

International Consolidated Airlines Group, S.A. (ICAGY - Free Report) is a holding company for British Airways and Iberia engaged in the provision of passenger and cargo transportation services in the U.K., Spain, the U.S. and other countries. The stock has a VGM Score of A. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2017 earnings rose 6% over the last 30 days.

Also, over the past three months, International Consolidated Airlines’ shares returned 24.4% against the Zacks categorized Transportation – Airline industry’s increase of 3.7%.

SK Telecom Co., Ltd. (SKM - Free Report) is a provider of wireless telecommunications services in South Korea. The company offers wireless voice transmission services; cellular global roaming services; and interconnection services to connect its networks to fixed-line and other wireless networks. The stock has a Value score of A.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2017 earnings increased 5.7% over the past 60 days. Also, over the past three months, SK Telecom Co.’ shares outperformed the Zacks categorized Wireless Non-US industry, registering a return of 10.6% against the industry’s increase of 4.3%.

j2 Global, Inc. , headquartered in Los Angeles, CA, offers Internet services through its segments – Business Cloud Services and Digital Media. The Stock has a VGM Score of B. The company delivered an average positive earnings surprise of 2.46% in the trailing four quarters.

Moreover, 2017 earnings estimates increased 8.1% to $5.59 per share over the last 30 days. Also, j2 Global gained 24.8% in the last six months while the Zacks Internet Software industry lost 4.0%.

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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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SK Telecom Co., Ltd. (SKM) - free report >>

International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (ICAGY) - free report >>

SP Plus Corporation (SP) - free report >>

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