Go With the Flowserve

All these positive estimate revisions caused Flowserve's Zacks rank to jump up to 1, putting the company among the top 5% of all companies measured in terms of earnings momentum. According to Dan Fitzpatrick, as of last Friday the technicals supported a buy (with appropriate risk controls.)

As with most stock ideas, Flowserve has some downside risk, particularly with regard to valuation levels. In particular, its 1.8% free cash flow yield is below the yield on Treasuries, meaning that a good deal of the return must come from growth. There are several names that offer similar growth and higher free cash flow yields, particularly among the software companies I look at. Still, I think there could be benefit to owning Flowserve for diversification purposes.

Its 19 times forward P/E ratio isn't among the cheapest available, and is toward the high end of the 8 to 24 times range at which Flowserve has traded over the last five years. Its price/book ratio is also significantly higher than those of its peers. I would not be at all surprised to see the valuation contract in the short term, and I am virtually certain it will contract in the longer term.

But taking the valuation ratios down to the five-year average over the next five years would knock about 4-5% per year off the return, by my estimates. Given the 20% annual expected growth rate over that period, that still leaves room for annual returns of 15% or so, which I think will far outpace the S&P 500 over that time.

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