Today's Strong And Under The Radar Stock: Acuity Brands (AYI)
Trade-Ideas LLC identified
(
) as a strong and under the radar candidate. In addition to specific proprietary factors, Trade-Ideas identified Acuity Brands as such a stock due to the following factors:
- AYI has an average dollar-volume (as measured by average daily share volume multiplied by share price) of $84.7 million.
- AYI has traded 460.029999999999972715158946812152862548828125 options contracts today.
- AYI is making at least a new 3-day high.
- AYI has a PE ratio of 42.
- AYI is mentioned 1.65 times per day on StockTwits.
- AYI has not yet been mentioned on StockTwits today.
- AYI is currently in the upper 20% of its 1-year range.
- AYI is in the upper 35% of its 20-day range.
- AYI is in the upper 45% of its 5-day range.
- AYI is currently trading above yesterday's high.
'Strong and Under the Radar' stocks tend to be worthwhile stocks to watch for a variety of factors including historical back testing and price action. Market technicians refer to such stocks as being in an accumulation phase before a mark-up and peak. Traders and hedge funds have frequently found that these types of stocks continue to build a solid price base and then ultimately spike higher and peak when others 'discover' how good the stock is performing. By leveraging the social discovery aspect of StockTwits we are highlighting stocks that don't currently receive much attention from retail investors, but we suspect may soon garner more attention.
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More details on AYI:
Acuity Brands, Inc. designs, produces, and distributes various lighting solutions and services for commercial, institutional, industrial, infrastructure, and residential applications in North America and internationally. The stock currently has a dividend yield of 0.2%. AYI has a PE ratio of 42. Currently there are 8 analysts that rate Acuity Brands a buy, no analysts rate it a sell, and 2 rate it a hold.
The average volume for Acuity Brands has been 621,600 shares per day over the past 30 days. Acuity has a market cap of $10.9 billion and is part of the technology sector and electronics industry. The stock has a beta of 1.53 and a short float of 4.7% with 6.05 days to cover. Shares are up 5.2% year-to-date as of the close of trading on Thursday.
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Analysis:
rates Acuity Brands as a
. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its robust revenue growth, largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures, impressive record of earnings per share growth, compelling growth in net income and expanding profit margins. We feel its strengths outweigh the fact that the company is trading at a premium valuation based on our review of its current price compared to such things as earnings and book value.
Highlights from the ratings report include:
- The revenue growth greatly exceeded the industry average of 10.6%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues rose by 26.2%. Growth in the company's revenue appears to have helped boost the earnings per share.
- AYI's debt-to-equity ratio is very low at 0.24 and is currently below that of the industry average, implying that there has been very successful management of debt levels. Along with the favorable debt-to-equity ratio, the company maintains an adequate quick ratio of 1.33, which illustrates the ability to avoid short-term cash problems.
- ACUITY BRANDS INC has improved earnings per share by 39.3% in the most recent quarter compared to the same quarter a year ago. The company has demonstrated a pattern of positive earnings per share growth over the past two years. We feel that this trend should continue. During the past fiscal year, ACUITY BRANDS INC increased its bottom line by earning $5.09 versus $4.05 in the prior year. This year, the market expects an improvement in earnings ($7.95 versus $5.09).
- The net income growth from the same quarter one year ago has significantly exceeded that of the S&P 500 and the Electrical Equipment industry. The net income increased by 41.2% when compared to the same quarter one year prior, rising from $46.40 million to $65.50 million.
- 45.60% is the gross profit margin for ACUITY BRANDS INC which we consider to be strong. It has increased from the same quarter the previous year. Along with this, the net profit margin of 8.42% is above that of the industry average.
- You can view the full Acuity Brands Ratings Report.
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