Stock Power Ratings: The Strong and the Weak
The Los Angeles Times Power Ratings rank stocks based on growth-oriented criteria: share price momentum, earnings forecasts and analysts’ recommendations. Using a formula designed by The Times, Zacks Investment Research screens its 6,600-stock universe for those with strength-or weakness-in three equally weighted categories: percentage change in share price over the last 12 weeks; percentage change, also over the last 12 weeks, in analysts’ consensus earnings-per-share estimate for the company’s current fiscal year; and analysts’ consensus rating (1.0 equals “strong buy” and 5.0 equals “strong sell”). Zacks ranks the stocks from 1 to 6,600 in each of the three categories, then averages those rankings to derive an overall power rating. The Top 50 and Bottom 50 stocks are listed. While no one should make decisions based solely on a stock screen-and The Times is not recommending buying or selling any of the companies listed-growth-oriented investors may be interested in seeing which companies have been showing strength or weakness in recent months. Along with the criteria used in the screen, the accompanying chart also lists Friday’s closing share price and the number of analysts covering each company.
For a full list of the Top 50 and Bottom 50 stocks via the Internet, visit https://latimes.com/power
The Top 20
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% chg. % chg. in in price, avg. ’99 last EPS* est., Avg. Ticker Friday 12 last 12 analyst Rank Company symbol price weeks wks. rating 1 Knight/Trimark NITE $71.06 273.4% 80.5% 1.3 2 First BTOB 27.38 173.8 115.2 1.5 2 Sierra Fin. 3 Go2Net GNET 127.19 144.0 97.6 1.3 4 Ameritrade AMTD 106.50 147.7 835.7 1.9 Hldg. 5 Apria AHG 18.50 114.5 265.0 1.3 Healthcare 6 RealNetworks RNWK 88.69 181.0 56.7 1.7 7 EBay EBAY 185.88 132.8 145.8 1.7 8 Conexant CNXT 39.81 129.1 134.4 1.6 Systems 9 Visx VISX 65.44 138.0 50.8 1.5 10 Qualcomm QCOM 112.00 245.3 39.6 1.9 11 CMGI CMGI 229.56 110.6 966.7 1.8 12 Harmonic HLIT 49.63 129.5 37.0 1.4 13 Infospace INSP 52.88 148.8 17.7 1.4 com 14 Sec. First SONE 54.00 123.3 34.2 1.4 Tech. 15 LTX LTXX 7.69 117.7 55.3 2.0 16 Aracruz Cel. ARA 21.19 82.3 47.2 1.3 (ADR) 17 Meridian TMR 5.75 148.7 31.8 2.0 Resorces 18 Triton Energy OIL 13.31 121.9 47.0 2.0 19 Safeguard SFE 88.63 126.9 24.3 1.6 Sctfc. 20 K-Swiss KSWS 42.63 97.1 36.9 1.5
No. of Rank analysts 1 8 2 4 2 3 4 4 8 5 4 6 9 7 11 8 11 9 7 10 17 11 9 12 4 13 4 14 7 15 6 16 4 17 10 18 10 19 11 20 3
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The Bottom 10
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% chg. % chg. in in price, avg. ’99 last EPS* est., Avg. Ticker Friday 12 last 12 analyst Rank Company symbol price weeks wks. rating 1 Network Assoc. NETA $12.81 -69.9% -90.3% 2.6 2 Aspect Develop. ASDV 10.75 -54.7 -74.5 2.8 3 Axent Technologies AXNT 10.25 -71.5 -75.0 2.4 4 IDX Systems IDXC 17.38 -47.4 -102.6 2.5 5 CompUSA CPU 6.56 -41.0 -82.2 2.9 6 Brightpoint CELL 6.06 -60.9 -65.0 2.3 7 Safeskin SFSK 11.50 -50.7 -48.4 3.0 8 Onsale ONSL 22.81 -29.9 -229.8 2.9 9 Read-Rite RDRT 7.50 -32.2 -641.7 2.5 10 Cambridge Tech. CATP 14.75 -50.0 -42.3 2.7
No. of Rank analysts 1 23 2 12 3 16 4 24 5 13 6 12 7 7 8 13 9 8 10 21
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* Earnings per share
Notes: Companies with share prices below $5 and those covered by fewer than three analysts are excluded.
Source: Richard Peal/Zacks Investment Research; for more information on Zacks Investment Research, visit https://www.zacks.com.
