Zacks.com Featured Highlights Include: Marine Products, Illumina, Chemed, Surmodics And MAM

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – May 29, 2018 - Stocks in this week’s article Marine Products Corp. (NYSE:MPX) , Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) , Chemed Corp. (NYSE:CHE) , Surmodics, Inc. (NASDAQ:SRDX) and MAM Software Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:MAMS) .

5 Top Efficient Stocks to Keep on Your Radar

Astute investors always opt for plans that are likely to yield high returns irrespective of market conditions. Efficiency level, which measures a company’s capability to transform available input into output, is often considered an important parameter used to gauge a company’s potential to rake in handsome returns.

A company with a favorable efficiency level is expected to provide stellar returns as it is believed to be positively correlated with price performance.

How to Measure Efficiency?

We have considered four popular ratios in order to find efficient companies that have the potential to provide impressive returns.

Inventory Turnover

Inventory level is one of the key indicators of a company’s business health. While a high inventory level may indicate that the company is going through a rough patch in terms of sales, a dwindling level may indicate that it will run out of stock in a favorable sales condition. This is where inventory turnover comes into play. It is the ratio of 12-month cost of goods sold (COGS) to a 4-quarter average inventory. Thus, a high value of the ratio indicates a low level of inventory relative to COGS, while a low ratio signals that the company has excess inventory.

Receivables Turnover

This ratio is used to measure a company’s capability to extend its credit and collect debts on the basis of that credit. Receivables turnover ratio or the “accounts receivable turnover ratio” or the “debtor’s turnover ratio” is calculated by dividing 12-month sales by four-quarter average receivables. While a high ratio indicates that the company efficiently collects its accounts receivables or has quality customers, a low ratio signals that the company has an inefficient collection procedure or has low-quality customers or an inefficient credit policy.

Asset Utilization

This is a widely used measure of a company’s efficiency. Asset utilization indicates a company’s potential to utilize its assets. It is a ratio of total sales over the past 12 months to the last 4-quarter average of total assets. So, higher the ratio, the greater is the chance that the company is utilizing its assets efficiently. On the contrary, a low value of the ratio signals that it is failing to use its assets effectively.

Operating Margin

Another popular efficiency ratio is operating margin. Operating profit margin, which is simply operating income over the past 12 months divided by sales over the same period, indicates how well a company is controlling its operating expenses. If a company has a high operating profit margin in relation to its competitors, it is doing a better job at controlling operating expenses.

All these ratios can be considered as effective measures if one compares different companies within a particular sector or industry. This is the reason why we have considered only those companies that have higher ratios than their respective industry averages.

For the rest of this Screen of the Week article please visit Zacks.com at: Zacks Investment Research

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Written By: Zacks Investment Research