Why The EPS Rating Is One Key To Picking The Best Stocks (2024)

To gauge your chances of picking a winning stock, take a close look at its fundamentals, especially its earnings-per-share growth. IBD's EPS Rating will help.

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You can easily calculate earnings per share. Simply divide a company's net income by its number of shares outstanding. But to find top growth stocks, seek outstanding profit performance.

Specifially, stocks with EPS growth rates of at least 25% compared with year-ago levels suggest a company has products or services in strong demand.

It's even better if the EPS growth rate has been accelerating in recent quarters and years.

"Strong earnings growth is essential to a stock's success and has the greatest impact on its future price performance," IBD founder and Chairman William J. O'Neil wrote in "How to Make Money in Stocks."

This is called meeting the C and the A in CAN SLIM, IBD's research-driven investing paradigm for picking excellent growth stocks.

What Is The IBD EPS Rating?

IBD's proprietary Earnings Per Share Rating allows you to quickly identify stocks with the strongest profit growth. The EPS Rating takes into account the growth and stability of a company's earnings over the past three years, with extra weighting put on the most recent two quarters. The result is assigned a rating of 1 to 99, with 99 being best.

An EPS Rating of 99 indicates that a company's profit growth has exceeded 99% of all publicly traded companies in the IBD database. You can find each company's EPS Rating atIBD Stock Checkup, as well as in stock quotes,sector-focused stock research tables and stock charts at Investors.com.

"The EPS Rating is invaluable for separating the true leaders from the poorly managed, deficient and lackluster companies in today's tougher worldwide competition," O'Neil wrote.

Stocks with an 80 or higher rating have the best chance of success. However, companies can boost their EPS figures through stock buybacks that reduce the number of outstanding shares. So, strong profit growth also demands strong sales growth.

Also, stocks with low EPS Ratings can sometimes beat the odds and be successful, often thanks to outstanding sales growth and expectations of future profits.

New issues usually don't have strong EPS Ratings because they don't have much of an earnings history. The same is true with turnaround stocks.

"It's not that companies with poor ratings can't perform. It's just that a greater percentage of them turn out to be disappointments," O'Neil wrote.

Don't Use The EPS Rating In Isolation

For greater certainty about a stock's prospects, it's important to use a company's EPS Rating in conjunction with its Composite Rating, Relative Strength Rating and Accumulation/Distribution score.

Together, these ratings provide a well-rounded picture of a company's fundamentals, including sales growth, institutional investor demand and stock price performance.

As usual, make sure the market is in a confirmed uptrend. Plus, demand the stock toclear a buy point in strong volume before buying it.

This article was originally published June 16, 2020. Follow Chung on Twitter at @SaitoChung and @IBD_DChung for more on growth stocks, buy points, breakouts, sell rules and market insight.

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Why The EPS Rating Is One Key To Picking The Best Stocks (2024)

FAQs

Why The EPS Rating Is One Key To Picking The Best Stocks? ›

So, strong profit growth also demands strong sales growth. Also, stocks with low EPS Ratings can sometimes beat the odds and be successful, often thanks to outstanding sales growth and expectations of future profits. New issues usually don't have strong EPS Ratings because they don't have much of an earnings history.

Why is EPS so important? ›

EPS indicates the company's profitability by showing how much money a business makes for each share of its stock. The EPS figure is determined by dividing the company's net profit by its outstanding shares of common stock. However, it is considered the higher the EPS number, the more profitable the company.

Is EPS a good measure of performance? ›

Earnings per share (EPS) is not a fair measure of a firm's performance. Earnings, in this case, are defined as the value that investors can claim. A major issue with EPS as a good performance measure is that the EPS is a result of the historical data and consists of one-off income and expenditures.

What should be the EPS for a good stock? ›

There is no hard and fast number to define a good EPS across companies. Since so many factors go into a company's net income and stock price, variables always exist from one company to the next. To determine whether a company's EPS is "good," it's essential to consider the company's earnings per share in context.

What is the EPS rating of a stock? ›

Stocks with EPS Ratings of 80 or above have outperformed 80% of all publicly traded companies in earnings. The EPS Rating combines each company's most recent two quarters of earnings-per-share growth with its three- to five-year annual growth rate.

Why is EPS so crucial to a stockholder and you? ›

Significance of Earnings Per Share

EPS is an input in the P/E ratio, that can help you compare the performance of promising companies and select the most suitable option. Earnings per share can help you understand the company's present financial standing and track its historical performance.

Why is EPS more important than revenue? ›

Besides, investors and analysts like to see the fast-growing EPS instead of revenue. This is because it shows that the company is becoming more efficient in running the business. The more money left after expenses and taxes, the more profit stockholders make.

What is the best measure of stock performance? ›

The most popular index and the one most investors and analysts use to gauge the health of the U.S. economy is the S&P 500. The Nasdaq 100 has handily outperformed the other major market indexes over the last decade.

What is the best measure of stock market performance? ›

The most common measures of performance are the market indexes, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 being the most popular.
  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average. ...
  • The S&P 500® Index. ...
  • Other U.S. indexes. ...
  • International market indexes. ...
  • Index mutual funds.

Is it good to have a higher EPS? ›

There's no definition of a “good” or “bad” EPS value. But all other things being equal, the higher a company's EPS is, the better. The opposite is true for a company's price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio. In most cases, the lower a company's P/E ratio is, the better.

What does EPS tell you? ›

Earnings per share (EPS) is a company's net income (or earnings) divided by the number of common shares outstanding. EPS shows how much a company earns for each share, with a higher EPS indicating the stock has a higher value when compared to others in its industry.

What is a good 5 year EPS growth? ›

As mentioned before, a good EPS growth rate is over 15%, and it will usually be preceded by a higher revenue growth rate.

What is the basic EPS? ›

Basic EPS is calculated as follows: [Net Income / Total Shares Outstanding] × 100 = Basic Earnings Per Share. Basic EPS tells you how much money a company made on average from each share that was outstanding during a given period.

Does EPS affect stock price? ›

So, to sum things up, stock prices are determined by a number of factors, but earnings and the P/E ratio are two of the most important drivers. Companies with high EPS and high P/E ratios will usually trade at higher prices than those with low EPS and low P/E ratios.

Does high EPS mean overvalued? ›

Key Takeaways. The P/E ratio is calculated by dividing the market value price per share by the company's earnings per share. A high P/E ratio can mean that a stock's price is high relative to earnings and possibly overvalued. A low P/E ratio might indicate that the current stock price is low relative to earnings.

What affects EPS? ›

A company can boost its EPS by increasing its earnings or reducing its share count through share buybacks, but a company that increases its outstanding share count faster than its earnings will cause its EPS to drop.

Why are companies so focused on EPS? ›

A company's EPS report usually attracts a lot of attention. It provides the bottom-line earnings results for a company and is one of the key measures of performance for a company on a quarterly or annual basis. Since it does attract a lot of attention, management and investors place a lot of importance on it.

Is High EPS good or bad? ›

As a general rule, the higher a company's EPS, the more profitable it's likely to be, though a higher EPS isn't a guarantee of future performance. It's important to remember that the quality and reliability of a company's EPS ratio can be influenced by how the company reports earnings and expenses.

What are the benefits of increasing EPS? ›

Earnings per share (EPS) shows how much profit a company makes for each share of its stock. Investors use EPS to gauge a company's profitability and potential returns. High EPS suggests good profit-making potential and efficient use of investor funds.

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