Profitability analysis is an excellent way to determine the ability of a company to ensure effective cost management and provide healthy returns to its investors. Using this analysis one can identify a profitable company, which generally offers better returns than a loss-making one.

Here, we have used the concept of accounting ratios to evaluate a company’s profitability. There is a variety of profitability ratios, from which we have chosen the most common and successful profitability metric to determine the bottom-line performance of a company.

Net Income Ratio

Net income ratio gives us the exact profitability level of a company. It reflects the percentage of net income to total sales revenues. Using net income ratio, one can determine a company’s effectiveness to pay for its operating and non-operating expenses from its revenues. A higher net income ratio usually implies a company’s ability to generate ample revenues and successfully manage all its business functions.

Screening Parameters

Net income ratio is not the only indicator of future winners. So we have added a few more criteria to arrive at a winning strategy.

Zacks Rank Equal to #1: Only Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks are allowed. With the Zacks Rank proving itself to be one of the best rating systems out there, this is a great way to start things off. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

12-Month Trailing Sales and Net Income Growth Higher than X Industry: Stocks that possess higher sales and net income growth in the last 12 months showcase better financial performance.

12-Month Trailing Net Income Ratio Higher than X Industry: High net income ratio indicates a company’s solid profitability.

% Rating Strong Buy greater than 70%: This indicates that 70% of the analysts covering these stocks are optimistic.

These few parameters narrowed down the universe of over 7,889 stocks to only seven.