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3 Stocks With Rising Cash Flows to Fortify Your Portfolio

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Key Takeaways

  • Jabil, Vista Energy and Riley Exploration Permian pass a screen for rising cash flows and financial strength.
  • Jabil's fiscal 2027 earnings estimate rose 6.1% to $17.61 per share over the past 60 days.
  • Vista Energy's 2026 earnings estimate rose 9.5%, while Riley Exploration Permian's jumped 23.9%.

Investing one’s hard-earned money in stocks with high profits and impressive earnings surprise records is a trend during the final leg of a reporting cycle. However, rather than brooding too much on profit numbers, strategically judging a company’s resiliency by assessing its efficacy in generating cash flows can be far more rewarding.

In this regard, stocks like Jabil Inc. (JBL - Free Report) , Vista Energy, S.A.B. de C.V. (VIST - Free Report) and Riley Exploration Permian, Inc. (REPX - Free Report) are worth buying.

This is because cash indicates a company’s true financial health. It offers the flexibility to make decisions, the means to make potential investments and the fuel to run its growth engine. In fact, even a profit-generating company might face bankruptcy while meeting obligations if it is low on cash flow. However, a sturdy cash balance can cushion these firms in case of any market turbulence. 

Particularly, analyzing a company’s cash-generating efficiency holds more relevance amid uncertainties in the global economy, market disruptions and dislocations, as well as liquidity concerns. Hence, evaluating a company's capacity to generate cash is crucial, not only for safeguarding your investment but also for its potential to grow.

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 does not merely 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.

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 five-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 three stocks that qualified for the screening:

Jabil is one of the largest global suppliers of electronic manufacturing services. The company offers electronics design, production, product management and aftermarket services to customers in the aerospace, automotive, computing, consumer, defense, industrial, instrumentation, medical, networking, peripherals, storage and telecommunications industries. 

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Jabil’s fiscal 2027 earnings has moved upward by 6.1% to $17.61 per share over the past 60 days. JBL currently has a VGM Score of B.

Vista Energy is an exploration and production company focused mainly on Argentina’s Vaca Muerta shale formation, a major shale oil and gas resource outside North America.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Vista Energy’s 2026 earnings has increased 9.5% over the past 30 days. VIST currently has a VGM Score of B.

Riley Exploration Permian is an independent oil and natural gas company. It is involved in the acquisition, exploration, development and production of oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids or NGLs, principally in the Permian Basin.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Riley Exploration Permian’s 2026 earnings has gone up 23.9% over the past 30 days. REPX currently has a VGM Score of A.

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