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Forget the Fed, Bet on These 4 Stocks With Increasing Cash Flows

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Investors are keeping a close watch on the Fed in recent times, as it gears up for the rate cut announcement. Eyes and ears are also on indications of the Fed’s future course of action. However, instead of brooding too much on these, investors can benefit from stocks that are cash cows and offer higher returns. 

Cash is the lifeblood of any business. It offers strength, vitality and flexibility to make investment decisions, and the fuel to run its growth engine. Moreover, cash shields a company from market turmoil and indicates that profits are being channeled in the right direction.

In this regard, stocks like Atour Lifestyle Holdings Limited (ATAT - Free Report) , Limbach Holdings, Inc. (LMB - Free Report) , Willdan Group, Inc. (WLDN - Free Report) and RCM Technologies, Inc. (RCMT - Free Report) are worth buying.

One must go beyond profit numbers and look at a company’s efficiency in generating cash flows to invest in the right stocks. This is because even a profit-making company can have a dearth of cash flow and fail to meet its obligations. However, a company’s resiliency can be fairly judged when its efficacy in generating cash flows is assessed. This holds more relevance in the current context amid uncertainties in the global economy, market disruptions and dislocations.

To figure out this efficiency, one needs to consider a company’s net cash flow. While in any business, cash moves in and out, it is net cash flow that explains how much money a company is actually generating.

If a company is experiencing a positive cash flow, it denotes an increase in its liquid assets, which gives it the means to meet debt obligations, shell out for expenses, reinvest in the business, endure downturns and finally return wealth to shareholders. On the other hand, a negative cash flow indicates a decline in the company’s liquidity, which in turn lowers its flexibility to support these moves.

However, having a positive cash flow merely does not secure a company’s future growth. To ride on the growth curve, a company must have its cash flow increasing because that indicates management’s efficiency in regulating its cash movements and less dependency on outside financing for running its business.

Therefore, keep yourself abreast with the following screen to bet on stocks with rising cash flows.

Screening Parameters:

To find stocks that have seen increasing cash flow over time, we ran the screen for those whose cash flow in the latest reported quarter was at least equal to or greater than the 5-year average cash flow per common share. This implies a positive trend and increasing cash over a period of time.

In addition to this, we chose:

Zacks Rank 1: No matter whether market conditions are good or bad, stocks with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) have a proven history of outperformance. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Average Broker Rating 1: This indicates that brokers are also highly hopeful about the company’s future performance.

Current Price greater than or equal to $5: This sieves out low-priced stocks.

VGM Score of B or better: This score is also of great assistance in selecting stocks. Importantly, this scoring system helps in picking winning stocks in their industry categories.

Here are four out of 13 stocks that qualified the screening:

Atour is a leading hospitality and lifestyle company in China, with a distinct portfolio of lifestyle hotel brands. Atour is the leading upper midscale hotel chain in China and is the first Chinese hotel chain to develop a scenario-based retail business.

Atour has an impressive long-term expected growth rate of 33.7%. ATAT has a VGM Score of A.

Limbach Holdings provides building systems. The company engineers, constructs and services mechanical, plumbing, air conditioning, heating, building automation, electrical and control systems.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Limbach Holdings’s 2024 earnings has moved 2.5% north in the past monthk to $2.43 per share. LMB sports a VGM Score of B.

Willdan Group is a provider of professional technical and consulting services to utilities, private industry and public agencies at all levels of government. WLDN enables its clients to realize cost and energy savings by providing a wide range of specialized services.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current-year earnings has improved 12.3% over the past two months to $2.10. WLDN has a VGM Score of A.

RCM Technologies, based in Pennsauken, NJ, is a national provider of business, technology and resource solutions in information technology and professional engineering to customers in corporate and government sectors.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for RCM Technologies’ 2024 earnings has been revised 2.2% upward to $2.33 in the past month. RCMT has a VGM Score of A.

Get the rest of the stocks on the list and start putting this and other ideas to the test. It can all be done with the Research Wizard stock picking and back-testing software.

The Research Wizard is a great place to begin. It's easy to use. Everything is in plain language. And it's very intuitive. Start your Research Wizard trial today. And the next time you read an economic report, open up the Research Wizard, plug your finds in, and see what gems come out.

Click here to sign up for a free trial to the Research Wizard today.

Disclosure: Officers, directors and/or employees of Zacks Investment Research may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material. An affiliated investment advisory firm may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material.

Disclosure: Performance information for Zacks’ portfolios and strategies are available at: https://www.zacks.com/performance.


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