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Bet on These 4 Top-Performing Liquid Stocks for Solid Gains
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Key Takeaways
Stocks like INTU, NVMI, NEM and PGY were screened for strong liquidity and asset efficiency.
All four companies show current, quick and cash ratios between 1 and 3, indicating sound liquidity.
The screen narrowed 7,700 stocks to 10, with these four meeting strict efficiency and growth criteria.
Liquidity indicates a company’s capability to meet debt obligations by converting its assets into liquid cash and equivalents. A company with adequate liquidity always has the potential to deliver higher returns, as stable financial resources can drive business growth.
Investors may want to consider adding four top-ranked stocks, such as Intuit Inc. (INTU - Free Report) , Nova Ltd. (NVMI - Free Report) , Newmont Corporation (NEM - Free Report) and Pagaya Technologies Ltd. (PGY - Free Report) to their portfolio to boost returns.
However, one should be careful about investing in a stock with a high liquidity level. High liquidity may also indicate that the company is unable to utilize its assets effectively. Besides sufficient cash in hand, an investor might also consider a company’s capital deployment abilities before investing in the stock. A healthy company with favorable liquidity may prove to be a profitable pick.
Measures to Identify Liquid Stocks
Current Ratio: It measures current assets relative to current liabilities. The ratio gauges a company’s potential to meet short- and long-term debt obligations. A current ratio — the working capital ratio — below 1 indicates that the company has more liabilities than assets. A high current ratio does not always suggest that the company is in good financial shape. It may also indicate that the firm failed to utilize its assets significantly. Hence, a range of 1-3 is considered ideal.
Quick Ratio: Unlike the current ratio, the quick ratio — the “acid-test ratio” or “quick assets ratio” — indicates a company’s ability to pay short-term obligations. It considers inventory, excluding current assets, relative to current liabilities. A quick ratio of more than 1 is desirable, like the current ratio.
Cash Ratio: This is the most conservative ratio among the three, considering cash and cash equivalents and invested funds relative to current liabilities. It measures a company’s ability to meet existing debt obligations using the most liquid assets. Though a cash ratio of more than 1 may suggest sound financials, a higher number may indicate inefficiency in cash utilization.
A ratio greater than 1 is always desirable but may not always represent a company’s financial condition.
Screening Parameters
To pick the best of the lot, we have added asset utilization — a widely used measure of a company’s efficiency — as one of the screening criteria. Asset utilization is the ratio of total sales in the past 12 months to the last four-quarter average of total assets. Though this ratio varies across industries, companies with a ratio higher than their industries can be considered efficient.
We added our proprietary Growth Score to the screen to ensure these liquid and efficient stocks have solid growth potential.
Current Ratio, Quick Ratio, and Cash Ratio between 1 and 3: While liquidity ratios greater than 1 are desirable, significantly high ratios may indicate inefficiency.
Asset utilization is more significant than the industry average: Higher asset utilization than the industry average indicates a company’s efficiency.
Growth Score less than or equal to B: Back-tested results show that stocks with a Growth Score of A or B handily beat other stocks when combined with a Zacks Rank #1 or 2 (Buy).
These criteria have narrowed the universe of more than 7,700 stocks to only 10.
Here are four of the 10 stocks that qualified the screen:
Intuit is a business and financial software company that develops and sells financial, accounting and tax preparation software and related services for small businesses, consumers and accounting professionals globally.
INTU’s strategy of shifting its business to a cloud-based subscription model will help generate stable revenues over the long run. The introduction of Intuit Assist, a generative AI-powered financial assistant, underscores INTU’s AI push. Intuit is embedding AI across key products like TurboTax, QuickBooks, Credit Karma and Mailchimp.
Intuit’s third-quarter fiscal 2025 revenues of $7.75 billion beat the consensus mark by 2.78% and increased 15.1% year over year. QuickBooks Online Accounting revenues were up 21% year over year to $1.04 billion, driven by higher effective prices, customer growth, and mix-shift. Online Services revenues, which include payroll, payments, time tracking and capital, jumped 18% year over year to $1.05 billion, driven by growth in money and payroll offerings. The Credit Karma business contributed $579 million to Intuit’s fiscal third-quarter total revenues, which increased 30.7% year over year, driven by strength in credit cards, personal loans and auto insurance.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for INTU’s fiscal 2025 earnings is pegged at $20.06 per share, unchanged in the past seven days. The company has a Growth Score of B and a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 12.15%, on average.
Nova is an Israel-based provider of advanced metrology and advanced process control solutions. The company stands to gain from solid growth seen in the semiconductor manufacturing capacity, owing to increasing demand for AI applications. NVMI is witnessing higher demand for its solutions in Gate-All-Around and advanced packaging process steps. The acquisition of Sentronics is expected to drive revenues as the company transitions to direct sales in some of the main markets.
Revenues surged 50% year over year in the first quarter of 2025 driven by higher sales of dimensional metrology.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for NOVA’s 2025 earnings is pegged at $8.47 per share, unchanged in the past seven days. The company has a Growth Score of B and a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 8.1%, on average.
Newmont Corporation is one of the world's largest producers of gold with several active mines in Nevada, Peru, Australia and Ghana. The company is the only gold producer listed on the S&P 500 Index. It also produces copper, silver, zinc and lead.
Newmont continues to invest in growth projects and remains focused on driving shareholder value. The company is pursuing several projects, including Tanami Expansion 2 in Australia, the Ahafo North expansion in Ghana and Cadia Panel Caves in Australia. Newmont also remains committed to divesting non-core businesses as it shifts its strategic focus to Tier 1 assets. In April 2025, Newmont completed the sale of its Akyem operation in Ghana and its Porcupine operation in Canada, successfully executing its divestiture program announced in February 2024. In March 2025, it announced the successful completion of the previously announced sales of three non-core assets, namely the Musselwhite and Eleonore operations in Canada and the Cripple Creek & Victor ("CC&V") operation in Colorado, USA. The acquisition of Newcrest is expected to generate significant synergies.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2025 earnings is pegged at $4.32 per share, up 14 cents in the past seven days. NEM has a Growth Score of B and a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 32.41%, on average.
Pagaya Technologies is focused on building AI infrastructure for the financial ecosystem and has offices in New York and Tel Aviv. The company is expanding beyond personal loans, moving into auto lending and point-of-sale (POS) financing. This diversification will decrease exposure to cyclical risk in any single loan category, making the business more stable across economic cycles.
In the last reported quarter, total revenues and other income of $290 million jumped 18% year over year, driven by a 19% increase in revenues from fees. For the current quarter, Network Volume is expected to be between $2.3 billion and $2.5 billion. Total revenues and other income is forecast to be between $290 million and $310 million.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for PGY’s 2025 earnings is pegged at $2.45 per share, unchanged in the past seven days. The company has a Growth Score of A and a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 12.91%, on average.
Get the remaining stocks on the list and start putting this and other ideas to the test. It can all be done with the Research Wizard stock picking and back testing software.
The Research Wizard is a great place to begin and easy to use. Everything is in plain language. And it's very intuitive. Start your Research Wizard trial today. And the next time you read an economic report, open up the Research Wizard, plug your finds in and see what gems come out.
Disclosure: Officers, directors and 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 mentioned in this material.
Image: Bigstock
Bet on These 4 Top-Performing Liquid Stocks for Solid Gains
Key Takeaways
Liquidity indicates a company’s capability to meet debt obligations by converting its assets into liquid cash and equivalents. A company with adequate liquidity always has the potential to deliver higher returns, as stable financial resources can drive business growth.
Investors may want to consider adding four top-ranked stocks, such as Intuit Inc. (INTU - Free Report) , Nova Ltd. (NVMI - Free Report) , Newmont Corporation (NEM - Free Report) and Pagaya Technologies Ltd. (PGY - Free Report) to their portfolio to boost returns.
However, one should be careful about investing in a stock with a high liquidity level. High liquidity may also indicate that the company is unable to utilize its assets effectively. Besides sufficient cash in hand, an investor might also consider a company’s capital deployment abilities before investing in the stock. A healthy company with favorable liquidity may prove to be a profitable pick.
Measures to Identify Liquid Stocks
Current Ratio: It measures current assets relative to current liabilities. The ratio gauges a company’s potential to meet short- and long-term debt obligations. A current ratio — the working capital ratio — below 1 indicates that the company has more liabilities than assets. A high current ratio does not always suggest that the company is in good financial shape. It may also indicate that the firm failed to utilize its assets significantly. Hence, a range of 1-3 is considered ideal.
Quick Ratio: Unlike the current ratio, the quick ratio — the “acid-test ratio” or “quick assets ratio” — indicates a company’s ability to pay short-term obligations. It considers inventory, excluding current assets, relative to current liabilities. A quick ratio of more than 1 is desirable, like the current ratio.
Cash Ratio: This is the most conservative ratio among the three, considering cash and cash equivalents and invested funds relative to current liabilities. It measures a company’s ability to meet existing debt obligations using the most liquid assets. Though a cash ratio of more than 1 may suggest sound financials, a higher number may indicate inefficiency in cash utilization.
A ratio greater than 1 is always desirable but may not always represent a company’s financial condition.
Screening Parameters
To pick the best of the lot, we have added asset utilization — a widely used measure of a company’s efficiency — as one of the screening criteria. Asset utilization is the ratio of total sales in the past 12 months to the last four-quarter average of total assets. Though this ratio varies across industries, companies with a ratio higher than their industries can be considered efficient.
We added our proprietary Growth Score to the screen to ensure these liquid and efficient stocks have solid growth potential.
Current Ratio, Quick Ratio, and Cash Ratio between 1 and 3: While liquidity ratios greater than 1 are desirable, significantly high ratios may indicate inefficiency.
Asset utilization is more significant than the industry average: Higher asset utilization than the industry average indicates a company’s efficiency.
Zacks Rank equal to #1: Only Strong Buy-rated stocks can get through. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Growth Score less than or equal to B: Back-tested results show that stocks with a Growth Score of A or B handily beat other stocks when combined with a Zacks Rank #1 or 2 (Buy).
These criteria have narrowed the universe of more than 7,700 stocks to only 10.
Here are four of the 10 stocks that qualified the screen:
Intuit is a business and financial software company that develops and sells financial, accounting and tax preparation software and related services for small businesses, consumers and accounting professionals globally.
INTU’s strategy of shifting its business to a cloud-based subscription model will help generate stable revenues over the long run. The introduction of Intuit Assist, a generative AI-powered financial assistant, underscores INTU’s AI push. Intuit is embedding AI across key products like TurboTax, QuickBooks, Credit Karma and Mailchimp.
Intuit’s third-quarter fiscal 2025 revenues of $7.75 billion beat the consensus mark by 2.78% and increased 15.1% year over year. QuickBooks Online Accounting revenues were up 21% year over year to $1.04 billion, driven by higher effective prices, customer growth, and mix-shift. Online Services revenues, which include payroll, payments, time tracking and capital, jumped 18% year over year to $1.05 billion, driven by growth in money and payroll offerings. The Credit Karma business contributed $579 million to Intuit’s fiscal third-quarter total revenues, which increased 30.7% year over year, driven by strength in credit cards, personal loans and auto insurance.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for INTU’s fiscal 2025 earnings is pegged at $20.06 per share, unchanged in the past seven days. The company has a Growth Score of B and a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 12.15%, on average.
Nova is an Israel-based provider of advanced metrology and advanced process control solutions. The company stands to gain from solid growth seen in the semiconductor manufacturing capacity, owing to increasing demand for AI applications. NVMI is witnessing higher demand for its solutions in Gate-All-Around and advanced packaging process steps. The acquisition of Sentronics is expected to drive revenues as the company transitions to direct sales in some of the main markets.
Revenues surged 50% year over year in the first quarter of 2025 driven by higher sales of dimensional metrology.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for NOVA’s 2025 earnings is pegged at $8.47 per share, unchanged in the past seven days. The company has a Growth Score of B and a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 8.1%, on average.
Newmont Corporation is one of the world's largest producers of gold with several active mines in Nevada, Peru, Australia and Ghana. The company is the only gold producer listed on the S&P 500 Index. It also produces copper, silver, zinc and lead.
Newmont continues to invest in growth projects and remains focused on driving shareholder value. The company is pursuing several projects, including Tanami Expansion 2 in Australia, the Ahafo North expansion in Ghana and Cadia Panel Caves in Australia. Newmont also remains committed to divesting non-core businesses as it shifts its strategic focus to Tier 1 assets. In April 2025, Newmont completed the sale of its Akyem operation in Ghana and its Porcupine operation in Canada, successfully executing its divestiture program announced in February 2024. In March 2025, it announced the successful completion of the previously announced sales of three non-core assets, namely the Musselwhite and Eleonore operations in Canada and the Cripple Creek & Victor ("CC&V") operation in Colorado, USA. The acquisition of Newcrest is expected to generate significant synergies.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2025 earnings is pegged at $4.32 per share, up 14 cents in the past seven days. NEM has a Growth Score of B and a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 32.41%, on average.
Pagaya Technologies is focused on building AI infrastructure for the financial ecosystem and has offices in New York and Tel Aviv. The company is expanding beyond personal loans, moving into auto lending and point-of-sale (POS) financing. This diversification will decrease exposure to cyclical risk in any single loan category, making the business more stable across economic cycles.
In the last reported quarter, total revenues and other income of $290 million jumped 18% year over year, driven by a 19% increase in revenues from fees. For the current quarter, Network Volume is expected to be between $2.3 billion and $2.5 billion. Total revenues and other income is forecast to be between $290 million and $310 million.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for PGY’s 2025 earnings is pegged at $2.45 per share, unchanged in the past seven days. The company has a Growth Score of A and a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 12.91%, on average.
Get the remaining stocks on the list and start putting this and other ideas to the test. It can all be done with the Research Wizard stock picking and back testing software.
The Research Wizard is a great place to begin and easy to use. Everything is in plain language. And it's very intuitive. Start your Research Wizard trial today. And the next time you read an economic report, open up the Research Wizard, plug your finds in and see what gems come out.
Click here to sign up for a free trial of the Research Wizard today.
Disclosure: Officers, directors and 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 mentioned in this material.
Disclosure: Performance information for Zacks’ portfolios and strategies is available at: https://www.zacks.com/performance.