Will John Laing's share price (LON:JLG) suffer because of its poor F-Score?

It's hard to keep tabs on hundreds of companies, but that's what we have to do if we want to find overlooked investment opportunities. Sometimes there just isn't time to dig through the annual accounts of multiple companies, however.

Thankfully there are measures like the Piotroski F-Score, which distil a wealth of financial data into one easily comparable score. Unfortunately, what the F-Score algorithm says for Industrials operator John Laing (LON:JLG) is not good. First a little bit more on what this number means.

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What the Piotroski F-Score says about John Laing (LON:JLG)

The Piotroski F-Score is a nine-strong checklist split up into three sections, each looking at a different part of a company's financial situation. Unlike most ratios, the F-Score looks more deeply into the direction in which a company’s financial health is moving.

Piotroski found that weak stocks with an F-Score of 2 or less are five times more likely to either go bankrupt or delist due to financial problems. Working our way through Piotroski's checklist, we can see that John Laing gets a lowly F-Score of 2 out of a possible 9...

*F-SCORE GRAPHIC*

This means that not only is John Laing (LON:JLG) financial health deteriorating, it currently fits in with the stocks that Piotroski identified as being five times more likely to go bankrupt or delist. Looking at the group's recent financial results, we can see that *FINANCIAL BRIEF*.

This performance highlights why paying attention to systematic checklists such as the F-Score can provide some much-needed clarity and help us make considered, consistent decisions.

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