Boost Your Portfolio Amid Coronavirus Volatility With This First Profit Stock Screener

The coronavirus and the growing economic slowdown and uncertainty have caused indexes to fall and stocks to become volatile. With that said, the ultra-quick downturn likely has some investors on the hunt for stocks to buy or add to their watchlists.

So, with first quarter 2020 earnings season on the horizon, we are going to utilize our ‘First Profit’ stock screener to help investors find strong stocks that might be worth taking a look at even amid the downturn.

The idea is to search for companies that recently reported their first quarterly profit. More specifically, the screen searches for firms that just posted their first profit last quarter, after not posting a profit for at least the previous four quarters.

Finding companies that recently reported their first profits help investors find stocks that can prove to be big winners. These companies may vary widely. Some of the firms might be new, and this recent profit is perhaps the only profit in its short history.

Meanwhile, other companies might have held an impressive and long history of quarterly profitability, but for whatever reason haven't seen a profit in a while. Therefore, the return to profit could spark a turning point that management had promised or Wall Street had been clamoring for.

The concept is relatively simple: if the trend has been one of improvement, there is a solid chance the trend will continue. This is true whether a company has been profitable, or is just reaching that key inflection point.

And that’s what we are screening for today…

• EPS for the previous 4 Quarters less than or equal to 0

(This means in each of the previous 4 quarters (except the most recently reported quarter) the company has reported earnings of less than or equal to zero, i.e., no profit.)

• EPS for the recently reported quarter greater than 0

(This time, the company reported earnings greater than zero, meaning they finally showed a profit.)

• Current Price greater than or equal to 5

(Stocks that are trading for less than $5 are more speculative.)

The screen is pretty simple, yet powerful. Here are 5 of the 22 stocks that made it through this week's screen…

Pure Storage, Inc. (PSTG)

Pattern Energy Group Inc. (PEGI)

NextEra Energy (NYSE:NEE) Partners, LP (NEP)

HubSpot, Inc. (HUBS)

Q2 Holdings, Inc. (QTWO)

Get the rest of the stocks on this list and start looking for the newest companies that fit these criteria. It's easy to do. And it could help you find your next big winner. Start screening for these companies today with a free trial to the Research Wizard. You can do it.

Get The News You Want

Read market moving news with a personalized feed of stocks you care about.

Get The App

Click here to sign up for a free trial to the Research Wizard today .

Want more articles from this author? Scroll up to the top of this article and click the FOLLOW AUTHOR button to get an email each time a new article is published.

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.

Disclosure: Performance information for Zacks’ portfolios and strategies are available at: .

Zacks' Super Screen

It's hard to believe, even for us at Zacks. But from 2000-2019, while the market gained +6.0% per year, our top stock-picking strategy averaged +54.7% per year.

How has that screen done lately? From 2017-2019, it quadrupled the market's +53.6% gain with a soaring +186.7% return.

Zacks Investment Research