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Here's Why You Should Avoid Betting on ITT Stock Right Now

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ITT Inc. (ITT - Free Report) has failed to impress investors with its recent operational performance, owing to difficult end-market conditions amid the coronavirus outbreak and other woes, which are expected to adversely impact its earnings.

The Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell) company has a market capitalization of $5 billion. In the past six months, it has lost 16.5% compared with the industry’s decline of 13.6%.

 


 

Let’s delve into the factors that might continue to take a toll on the firm.

Weak Demand Environment: In the quarters ahead, ITT anticipates to experience an adverse impact on its businesses on account of the coronavirus outbreak-led market downturn. Notably, the company believes that lower demand for brake pads will adversely impact its Motion Technologies segment. Also, weak prices for oil and gas as well as governmental restrictions, owing to the pandemic, remain concerning for the Industrial Process segment. In addition, its Connect and Control Technologies segment is likely to suffer from reduced demand for aftermarket and aerospace OEM components, and connectors.

Expected Low Working-Capital Generation: The company anticipates the operating income of its business segments to decline due to the coronavirus-led woes. Also, its working capital is expected to be hurt badly in 2020. This, in turn, will likely have negative impacts on ITT’s operating cash flows in the year.

Forex Woes: Given its widespread presence in international markets, the company is exposed to the unfavorable foreign currency movements. For instance, in first-quarter 2020, foreign exchange headwinds hurt its top-line performance by $12.4 million and also had an adverse impact of $12.7 million on orders.

Estimate Trend: In the past 30 days, analysts have increasingly become bearish on the company, as evident from negative earnings estimate revisions. Notably, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for its 2020 earnings has trended down from $2.85 to $2.54 on five downward estimate revisions against two upward revisions. In addition, over the same timeframe, the consensus estimate for 2021 earnings has trended down from $3.35 to $3.06 on four downward estimate revisions against two upward revisions.

Stocks to Consider

Some better-ranked stocks from the Zacks Industrial Products sector are Intellicheck, Inc. (IDN - Free Report) , Alcoa Corporation (AA - Free Report) and Broadwind Energy Inc. (BWEN - Free Report) . All the companies currently carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Intellicheck delivered a positive earnings surprise of 70.24%, on average, in the trailing four quarters.

Alcoa delivered a positive earnings surprise of 12.78%, on average, in the trailing four quarters.

Broadwind delivered a positive earnings surprise of 50.00%, on average, in the trailing four quarters.

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