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Add These 4 Top-Ranked Liquid Stocks to Boost Portfolio Returns
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Key Takeaways
Stocks like INTU, NTGR, PBYI and DASH were screened for strong liquidity and asset efficiency.
The screen narrowed 7,700 stocks to 13, with these four meeting strict efficiency and growth criteria.
Each stock also boasts higher asset utilization than its industry average and solid growth attributes.
Investors seeking strong returns may gain by adding stocks with robust liquidity to their portfolios. Liquidity reflects a company's ability to meet its short-term financial obligations. Stocks with high liquidity are favored by the investors, as they often signal financial stability and the potential for strong growth and returns.
Investors may want to consider adding four top-ranked stocks, such as Intuit Inc. (INTU - Free Report) , NETGEAR, Inc. (NTGR - Free Report) , Puma Biotechnology, Inc. (PBYI - Free Report) and DoorDash, Inc. (DASH - Free Report) to their portfolio to boost returns.
However, it is important to exercise caution before investing in such stocks. While high liquidity can indicate that a company is efficiently managing its short-term obligations, it may also suggest underutilization of resources. In some cases, companies with excess liquidity may not be deploying their assets effectively, which could limit growth potential.
Hence, one may consider a company’s efficiency level in addition to its liquidity while identifying prospective winners. A balanced assessment of both liquidity and efficiency can help identify truly promising investment opportunities.
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 13.
Here are four of the 13 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 A and a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 12.15%, on average.
NETGEAR is a leading provider of advanced, high-performance and premium networking technologies and Internet-connected products for consumers, businesses and service providers.
NTGR is well-poised to gain from continued strength in the NETGEAR for Business (“NFB”) unit and recurring revenues. Driven by ongoing momentum for ProAV managed switch products, revenues from the NFB segment jumped 15.4% to $79.2 million in the last reported quarter. The NFB business delivered a 46.3% gross margin, up 440 basis points year over year. NETGEAR generated $8.7 million of recurring revenues in the last reported quarter. It now has 559,000 recurring subscribers. The company generated $35 million of recurring revenues in 2024. Increasing subscriber revenues is essential for long-term financial stability and cash flow generation.
Although demand for the ProAV line of managed switches is expected to be strong, NETGEAR has highlighted that supply constraints will persist for certain managed switch products. These constraints are expected to ease in the second quarter and start improving in the latter half of the year. Also, management highlighted that it is insulated from ongoing tariff troubles, especially with China, as it has no manufacturing in the country. Second-quarter revenues are expected to be in the $155-170 million band.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for NTGR’s 2025 earnings is pegged at a loss of 23 cents per share, unchanged in the past seven days. The company has a Growth Score of A and a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 179.12%, on average.
Puma Biotechnology is a small cancer biotech whose only marketed product, Nerlynx (neratinib), is approved in the United States for two indications — the extended adjuvant treatment of adult patients with early-stage HER2-overexpressed/amplified breast cancer following adjuvant Herceptin-based therapy and for use in combination with Roche’s Xeloda for the treatment of adult patients with advanced or metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer who have received two or more prior anti-HER2-based regimens in the metastatic setting.
Nerlynx generates the majority of revenues in the United States. In the last reported quarter, product revenues from Nerlynx totaled $43.1 million, representing a year-over-year increase of 7%. Nerlynx’s product sales were slightly above the guidance of $41-$43 million.
The company in-licensed clinical-stage candidate alisertib from Takeda. Ongoing studies on alisertib targeting breast and small-cell lung cancers are progressing well. The successful development of this candidate will significantly enhance its position in the anti-cancer drug market.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for PBYI’s 2025 earnings is pegged at 65 cents per share, unchanged in the past seven days. The company has a Growth Score of A and a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 171.43%, on average.
DoorDash offers a logistics and technology platform to local businesses. DoorDash is benefiting from strong order growth and rising Marketplace GOV, along with enhanced logistics efficiency and growing contribution from advertising. In the first quarter of 2025, total orders increased 18% year over year to 732 million. Total orders were driven by growth in consumers and average consumer engagement. Marketplace GOV increased 20% year over year to $23.1 billion. Strong momentum across its new verticals, particularly in the grocery segment, bodes well. An expanding clientele, driven by collaborations with companies such as Dollar General and The Home Depot is noteworthy.
DASH is also focused on an inorganic strategy to boost top-line performance. In June 2025, it announced the acquisition of ad-tech platform, Symbiosys. Before that, it announced SevenRooms buyout to boost its Commerce Platform capabilities for merchants across the globe.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for DASH’s 2025 earnings is pegged at $2.16 per share, unchanged in the past seven days. The company has a Growth Score of A.
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
Add These 4 Top-Ranked Liquid Stocks to Boost Portfolio Returns
Key Takeaways
Investors seeking strong returns may gain by adding stocks with robust liquidity to their portfolios. Liquidity reflects a company's ability to meet its short-term financial obligations. Stocks with high liquidity are favored by the investors, as they often signal financial stability and the potential for strong growth and returns.
Investors may want to consider adding four top-ranked stocks, such as Intuit Inc. (INTU - Free Report) , NETGEAR, Inc. (NTGR - Free Report) , Puma Biotechnology, Inc. (PBYI - Free Report) and DoorDash, Inc. (DASH - Free Report) to their portfolio to boost returns.
However, it is important to exercise caution before investing in such stocks. While high liquidity can indicate that a company is efficiently managing its short-term obligations, it may also suggest underutilization of resources. In some cases, companies with excess liquidity may not be deploying their assets effectively, which could limit growth potential.
Hence, one may consider a company’s efficiency level in addition to its liquidity while identifying prospective winners. A balanced assessment of both liquidity and efficiency can help identify truly promising investment opportunities.
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 13.
Here are four of the 13 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 A and a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 12.15%, on average.
NETGEAR is a leading provider of advanced, high-performance and premium networking technologies and Internet-connected products for consumers, businesses and service providers.
NTGR is well-poised to gain from continued strength in the NETGEAR for Business (“NFB”) unit and recurring revenues. Driven by ongoing momentum for ProAV managed switch products, revenues from the NFB segment jumped 15.4% to $79.2 million in the last reported quarter. The NFB business delivered a 46.3% gross margin, up 440 basis points year over year. NETGEAR generated $8.7 million of recurring revenues in the last reported quarter. It now has 559,000 recurring subscribers. The company generated $35 million of recurring revenues in 2024. Increasing subscriber revenues is essential for long-term financial stability and cash flow generation.
Although demand for the ProAV line of managed switches is expected to be strong, NETGEAR has highlighted that supply constraints will persist for certain managed switch products. These constraints are expected to ease in the second quarter and start improving in the latter half of the year. Also, management highlighted that it is insulated from ongoing tariff troubles, especially with China, as it has no manufacturing in the country. Second-quarter revenues are expected to be in the $155-170 million band.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for NTGR’s 2025 earnings is pegged at a loss of 23 cents per share, unchanged in the past seven days. The company has a Growth Score of A and a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 179.12%, on average.
Puma Biotechnology is a small cancer biotech whose only marketed product, Nerlynx (neratinib), is approved in the United States for two indications — the extended adjuvant treatment of adult patients with early-stage HER2-overexpressed/amplified breast cancer following adjuvant Herceptin-based therapy and for use in combination with Roche’s Xeloda for the treatment of adult patients with advanced or metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer who have received two or more prior anti-HER2-based regimens in the metastatic setting.
Nerlynx generates the majority of revenues in the United States. In the last reported quarter, product revenues from Nerlynx totaled $43.1 million, representing a year-over-year increase of 7%. Nerlynx’s product sales were slightly above the guidance of $41-$43 million.
The company in-licensed clinical-stage candidate alisertib from Takeda. Ongoing studies on alisertib targeting breast and small-cell lung cancers are progressing well. The successful development of this candidate will significantly enhance its position in the anti-cancer drug market.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for PBYI’s 2025 earnings is pegged at 65 cents per share, unchanged in the past seven days. The company has a Growth Score of A and a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 171.43%, on average.
DoorDash offers a logistics and technology platform to local businesses. DoorDash is benefiting from strong order growth and rising Marketplace GOV, along with enhanced logistics efficiency and growing contribution from advertising. In the first quarter of 2025, total orders increased 18% year over year to 732 million. Total orders were driven by growth in consumers and average consumer engagement. Marketplace GOV increased 20% year over year to $23.1 billion.
Strong momentum across its new verticals, particularly in the grocery segment, bodes well. An expanding clientele, driven by collaborations with companies such as Dollar General and The Home Depot is noteworthy.
DASH is also focused on an inorganic strategy to boost top-line performance. In June 2025, it announced the acquisition of ad-tech platform, Symbiosys. Before that, it announced SevenRooms buyout to boost its Commerce Platform capabilities for merchants across the globe.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for DASH’s 2025 earnings is pegged at $2.16 per share, unchanged in the past seven days. The company has a Growth Score of A.
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.