Investors seek growth stocks to capitalize on above-average growth in financials that help these securities grab the market's attention and produce exceptional returns. But finding a growth stock that can live up to its true potential can be a tough task.
That's because, these stocks usually carry above-average risk and volatility. In fact, betting on a stock for which the growth story is actually over or nearing its end could lead to significant loss.
However, the task of finding cutting-edge growth stocks is made easy with the help of the Zacks Growth Style Score (part of the Zacks Style Scores system), which looks beyond the traditional growth attributes to analyze a company's real growth prospects.
Our proprietary system currently recommends ArcBest (ARCB) as one such stock. This company not only has a favorable Growth Score, but also carries a top Zacks Rank.
Studies have shown that stocks with the best growth features consistently outperform the market. And for stocks that have a combination of a Growth Score of A or B and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or 2 (Buy), returns are even better.
While there are numerous reasons why the stock of this freight transportation and logistics company is a great growth pick right now, we have highlighted three of the most important factors below:
Earnings Growth
Arguably nothing is more important than earnings growth, as surging profit levels is what most investors are after. And for growth investors, double-digit earnings growth is definitely preferable, and often an indication of strong prospects (and stock price gains) for the company under consideration.
While the historical EPS growth rate for ArcBest is 41.4%, investors should actually focus on the projected growth. The company's EPS is expected to grow 30.2% this year, crushing the industry average, which calls for EPS growth of 11.9%.
Impressive Asset Utilization Ratio
Asset utilization ratio -- also known as sales-to-total-assets (S/TA) ratio -- is often overlooked by investors, but it is an important indicator in growth investing. This metric exhibits how efficiently a firm is utilizing its assets to generate sales.
Right now, ArcBest has an S/TA ratio of 1.81, which means that the company gets $1.81 in sales for each dollar in assets. Comparing this to the industry average of 1.16, it can be said that the company is more efficient.
In addition to efficiency in generating sales, sales growth plays an important role. And ArcBest is well positioned from a sales growth perspective too. The company's sales are expected to grow 3% this year versus the industry average of 2.8%.