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Want to Gain from Relative Price Strength? 5 Stocks to Buy

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Investors generally gauge a stock’s potential return by examining earnings growth and valuation multiples. At the same time, it’s important to measure the performance of such a stock relative to its industry or peers, or the appropriate benchmark.

If you see that a stock is underperforming on fundamental factors, then it would be prudent to move on and find a better alternative. However, those outperforming their respective sectors in terms of price should be selected because they stand a better chance to provide considerable returns.

Then again, it is imperative that you determine whether or not an investment has relevant upside potential when considering stocks with significant relative price strength. Stocks delivering better than the S&P 500 over a period of 1 to 3 months at the least and having solid fundamentals indicate room for growth, and are the best ways to go about this strategy.

Finally, it is important to find out whether analysts are optimistic about the upcoming earnings results of these companies. In order to do this, we have added positive estimate revisions for the current quarter’s (Q1) earnings to our screen. When a stock undergoes an upward revision, it leads to additional price gains.

Screening Parameters

Relative % Price change – 12 weeks greater than 0

Relative % Price change – 4 weeks greater than 0

Relative % Price change – 1 week greater than 0

(We have considered those stocks that have been outperforming the S&P 500 over the last 12 weeks, 4 weeks and 1 week.)

% Change (Q1) Est. over 4 Weeks greater than 0:Positive current quarter estimate revisions over the last four weeks.

Zacks Rank equal to 1:Only Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks – that have returned more than 26% annually over the last 26 years and surpassed the S&P 500 in 23 of the last 26 years – can get through. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Current Price greater than or equal to $5 and Average 20-day Volume greater than or equal to 50,000: A minimum price of $5 is a good standard to screen low-priced stocks, while a high trading volume would imply adequate liquidity.

VGM Score less than or equal to B:Our research shows that stocks with a VGM Score of ‘A’ or ‘B’ when combined with a Zacks Rank #1 or #2 (Buy) offer the best upside potential.

Here are the 5 of the 13 stocks that made it through the screen:

Brooks Automation Inc. : Headquartered in Chelmsford, MA, Brooks Automation is a   leading   provider   of   automation   solutions   for   the global semiconductor   and   other   associated   industries. The company has a VGM score of “B” and an excellent earnings surprise history. It surpassed estimates in each of the last four quarters at an average rate of 38.69%.

United States Steel Corp. (X - Free Report) : A leading steel manufacturer in the U.S. and the fifth largest in the world, Pittsburgh, PA-based United States Steel has a VGM score of “A”. Over the past 30 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal years 2017 and 2018 increased 170% and 29%, to $2.67 and $2.38 per share, respectively.

Everest Re Group Ltd. : Everest Re’s operations encompass property and casualty (P&C), reinsurance and insurance in the U.S, Bermuda and international markets. Headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda, the company also offers other innovative products like excess and surplus lines of insurance. The company has a VGM score of “B” and handily outperformed earnings estimates in all the last 3 reported quarters.

OraSure Technologies Inc. (OSUR - Free Report) : OraSure Technologies is a leading developer and manufacturer of various lines of oral fluid diagnostics. Sporting a VGM score of “A”, this Bethlehem, PA headquartered company’s expected EPS growth rate for 3 to 5 years currently stands at 15% –– comparing favorably with the industry growth rate of 14.40%.

TTM Technologies Inc. (TTMI - Free Report) : Headquartered in Costa Mesa, CA, TTM Technologies is a leading provider of time-critical, one-stop manufacturing services for highly complex printed circuit boards. The 2017 Zacks Consensus Estimate for this company is $1.38, representing some 7% earnings per share growth over 2016. Next year’s average forecast is $1.44, pointing to 4% growth. TTM Technologies Resources has a VGM score of “A”.

You can get the rest of the stocks on this list by signing up now for your 2-week free trial to the Research Wizard and start using this screen in your own trading. Further, you can also create your own strategies and test them first before taking the investment plunge.

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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