Yahoo Finance 3 Reasons Why Growth Investors Shouldn't Overlook Evolution Petroleum (EPM)
Growth investors focus on stocks that are seeing above-average financial growth, as this feature helps these securities garner the market's attention and deliver solid returns. But finding a growth stock that can live up to its true potential can be a tough task.
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.
Evolution Petroleum (EPM) is on the list of such stocks currently recommended by our proprietary system. In addition to a favorable Growth Score, it carries a top Zacks Rank.
Research shows that stocks carrying the best growth features consistently beat 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 oil and gas 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 Evolution Petroleum is 21.9%, investors should actually focus on the projected growth. The company's EPS is expected to grow 15.1% this year, crushing the industry average, which calls for EPS growth of -27.5%.
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, Evolution Petroleum has an S/TA ratio of 1.09, which means that the company gets $1.09 in sales for each dollar in assets. Comparing this to the industry average of 0.62, it can be said that the company is more efficient.
While the level of efficiency in generating sales matters a lot, so does the sales growth of a company. And Evolution Petroleum looks attractive from a sales growth perspective as well. The company's sales are expected to grow 22.1% this year versus the industry average of -8%.
Promising Earnings Estimate Revisions
Superiority of a stock in terms of the metrics outlined above can be further validated by looking at the trend in earnings estimate revisions. A positive trend is of course favorable here. Empirical research shows that there is a strong correlation between trends in earnings estimate revisions and near-term stock price movements.
The current-year earnings estimates for Evolution Petroleum have been revising upward. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year has surged 20.8% over the past month.
Bottom Line
While the overall earnings estimate revisions have made Evolution Petroleum a Zacks Rank #1 stock, it has earned itself a Growth Score of A based on a number of factors, including the ones discussed above.
You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
This combination indicates that Evolution Petroleum is a potential outperformer and a solid choice for growth investors.
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Evolution Petroleum Corporation, Inc. (EPM) : Free Stock Analysis Report
