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Zacks.com featured highlights: Sprouts Farmers Market, EMCOR, Huntington Ingalls, Grand Canyon Education and Nutrisystem

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – December 11, 2017 - Stocks in this week’s article Sprouts Farmers Market, Inc. (SFM - Free Report) , EMCOR Group, Inc. (EME - Free Report) , Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (HII - Free Report) , Grand Canyon Education, Inc. (LOPE - Free Report) and Nutrisystem, Inc. .

These 5 Stocks Flaunt Impressive Coverage Ratios

You can simply arrive at a decision to Buy or Sell a particular stock by looking at its sales and earnings numbers. But such a strategy does not always guarantee superior returns. A critical analysis of the company’s financial background is always required for a better investment decision. 

A company’s fundamentals should be sound enough to meet its financial obligations. This can be judged with coverage ratios — the higher these are the more efficient an enterprise will be in meeting its financial obligations. Here we have discussed one such ratio — the Interest Coverage Ratio.

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

Why Interest Coverage Ratio?

Interest Coverage Ratio is used to determine how effectively a company can pay the interest charged on its debt.

Debt, which is crucial for most of the companies to finance operations, comes at a cost called interest. Interest expense has a direct bearing on the profitability of a company and 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 suggests the number of times the interest could be paid from earnings and also gauges the margin of safety a firm carries for paying interest.

An interest coverage ratio lower than 1.0 implies that the company is unable to fulfill its interest obligations and could default on repaying debt. A company that is capable of generating earnings well above its interest expense can withstand financial hardship. Definitely, 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.

For the rest of this Screen of the Week article please visit Zacks.com at: https://www.zacks.com/stock/news/285330/these-5-stocks-flaunt-impressive-interest-coverage-ratio

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.

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Strong Stocks that Should Be in the News

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