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Growth stocks are attractive to many investors, as above-average financial growth helps these stocks easily grab the market's attention and produce exceptional returns. However, it isn't easy to find a great growth stock.
In addition to volatility, these stocks carry above-average risk by their very nature. Also, one could end up losing from a stock whose growth story is actually over or nearing its end.
However, 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, makes it pretty easy to find cutting-edge growth stocks.
RF Industries, Ltd. (RFIL) is one such stock that our proprietary system currently recommends. The company not only has a favorable Growth Score, but also carries a top Zacks Rank.
Research shows that stocks carrying the best growth features consistently beat the market. And returns are even better for stocks that possess the combination of a Growth Score of A or B and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or 2 (Buy).
While there are numerous reasons why the stock of this company is a great growth pick right now, we have highlighted three of the most important factors below:
Earnings Growth
Earnings growth is arguably the most important factor, as stocks exhibiting exceptionally surging profit levels tend to attract the attention of most investors. For growth investors, double-digit earnings growth is highly preferable, as it is often perceived as an indication of strong prospects (and stock price gains) for the company under consideration.
While the historical EPS growth rate for RF Industries is 46%, investors should actually focus on the projected growth. The company's EPS is expected to grow 333.3% this year, crushing the industry average, which calls for EPS growth of -14%.
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, RF Industries has an S/TA ratio of 0.88, which means that the company gets $0.88 in sales for each dollar in assets. Comparing this to the industry average of 0.49, it can be said that the company is more efficient.
In addition to efficiency in generating sales, sales growth plays an important role. And RF Industries looks attractive from a sales growth perspective as well. The company's sales are expected to grow 11.7% this year versus the industry average of -0.9%.