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Zacks.com featured highlights Sterling, Leidos, Tenet and Amazon.com

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – December 3, 2024 – Stocks in this week’s article are Sterling Infrastructure, Inc. (STRL - Free Report) , Leidos Holdings, Inc. (LDOS - Free Report) , Tenet Healthcare Corp. (THC - Free Report) and Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN - Free Report) .

Pick These 4 Stocks with Solid Interest Coverage Ratios

Relying solely on stock price movements without understanding the company’s fundamentals can cause investors to lose money. Investors must carefully review a company's financial health to make informed decisions, especially in today’s unpredictable market.

While sales and earnings are often the go-to metrics, they can sometimes be misleading and may not show whether a company has the financial strength to cover its obligations. This is where the coverage ratio holds the key — a higher ratio signals that a company is more capable of meeting its financial commitments.

Sterling Infrastructure, Inc., Leidos Holdings, Inc., Tenet Healthcare Corp. and Amazon.com, Inc. boast an impressive interest coverage ratio.

Why Interest Coverage Ratio?

The interest coverage ratio is used to determine how effectively a company can pay interest charges on its debt.

Debt, which is crucial to financing operations for the majority of companies, comes at a cost called interest. Interest expense has a direct bearing on the profitability of a company. The company’s creditworthiness depends on how effectively it meets its interest obligations. Therefore, interest coverage ratio is one of the important criteria to factor in before making any investment decision.

Interest Coverage Ratio = Earnings before Interest & Taxes (EBIT) divided by Interest Expense.

Interest coverage ratio suggests how many times the interest could be paid from earnings and gauges the margin of safety a firm has for paying interest.

An interest coverage ratio lower than 1 suggests that the company is unable to fulfill its interest obligations and could default on repaying debt. A company capable of generating earnings well above its interest expense can withstand financial hardships. One should also track the company’s past performance to determine whether the interest coverage ratio has improved or worsened over a period of time.

Here are four of the 16 stocks that qualified the screening:

Sterling Infrastructure, which is engaged in e-infrastructure, transportation and building solutions, sports a Zacks Rank #1 and has a VGM Score of B. Sterling Infrastructure delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 21.5%, on average. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Sterling Infrastructure’s current financial year sales and EPS suggests growth of 9% and 33.3%, respectively, from a year ago. The stock has surged 198.9% in the past year.

Leidos Holdings, which provides services and solutions in the defense, intelligence, civil and health markets in the United States and internationally, has a VGM Score of A and carries a Zacks Rank #1.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Leidos Holdings’ current financial year sales and EPS suggests growth of 6.1% and 35.5%, respectively, from a year ago. Leidos Holdings has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 29.9%, on average. The stock has risen 48.6% in the past year.

Tenet Healthcare, a diversified healthcare services company in the United States, sports a Zacks Rank #1 and has a VGM Score of A.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Tenet Healthcare’s current financial year sales and EPS suggests growth of 1.1% and 63%, respectively, from a year ago. THC came up with a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 59.9%, on average. The stock has skyrocketed 97.3% in the past year.

Amazon, a multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming and artificial intelligence, has a Zacks Rank #2 and a VGM Score of B.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Amazon’s current financial year sales and EPS suggests growth of 10.9% and 79%, respectively, from the year-ago period’s levels. AMZN delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 25.9%, on average. The stock has surged 43.5% in the past year.

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For the rest of this Screen of the Week article please visit Zacks.com at: https://www.zacks.com/stock/news/2377609/pick-these-4-stocks-with-solid-interest-coverage-ratio

Zacks Investment Research is under common control with affiliated entities (including a broker-dealer and an investment adviser), which may engage in transactions involving the foregoing securities for the clients of such affiliates.

Contact: Jim Giaquinto

Company: Zacks.com

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Email: pr@zacks.com

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