Add These 4 GARP Stocks to Your Portfolio for Maximum Returns

If you're looking for a profitable portfolio of stocks that will offer the best value and growth investing, try the growth at a reasonable price or GARP strategy.

The strategy helps an investor gain exposure to stocks that are undervalued and have impressive growth prospects. Unlike a blend strategy, a portfolio that uses GARP investing is expected to include stocks that offer the best of both value and growth investing. H&R Block HRB, W.W. Grainger GWW, Ulta Beauty ULTA and Broadcom AVGO are some GARP stocks that hold promise.

GARP Metrics – Mix of Growth & Value Metrics

The GARP strategy seeks to offer an ideal investment by utilizing the best features of both value and growth investing. Investors adopting the GARP approach prefer to buy stocks that are priced below the market or any reasonable target determined by fundamental analysis. These stocks also have solid prospects in terms of cash flow, revenues, earnings per share (EPS) and so on.

Growth Metrics

Both strong earnings growth history and impressive earnings prospects are the main concepts that GARP investors borrow from the growth investing strategy. However, instead of super-normal growth rates, pursuing stocks with a more stable and reasonable growth rate is a tactic of GARP investors. Hence, growth rates between 10% and 20% are considered ideal under the GARP strategy.

Another growth metric considered by both growth and GARP investors is the return on equity (ROE). GARP investors look for strong and higher ROE compared to the industry average to identify superior stocks. Moreover, stocks with positive cash flows find precedence under the GARP plan.

Value Metrics

GARP investing gives priority to one of the popular value metrics — the price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio. Though this investing style picks stocks with higher P/E ratios compared to value investors, it avoids companies with extremely high P/E ratios. Moreover, the price-to-book value (P/B) ratio is considered.

Using the GARP principle, we have run a screen to identify stocks that should offer solid returns in the near term.

Screening Parameters

Along with the criteria discussed in the above section, we have considered a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or 2 (Buy).

Last 5-year EPS & projected 3-5-year EPS growth rates between 10% and 20% (Strong EPS growth history and prospects ensure improving business.)

ROE (over the past 12 months) greater than the industry average (Higher ROE compared to the industry average indicates superior stocks.)

P/E and P/B ratios less than M-industry average (P/E and P/B ratios less than that of the industry indicate that the stocks are undervalued.)

Here are four of the seven stocks that made it through the screen:

H&R Block is a provider of tax preparation services such as assisted income tax return preparation, do-it-yourself tax solutions, and other products and services associated with income tax return preparation. The company currently flaunts a Zacks Rank #1. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

H&R Block has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 21.04%, on average. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for HRB's fiscal 2022 earnings has moved north by 5.6% to $3.38 per share over the past 30 days.

W.W. Grainger is a broad line, business-to-business distributor of maintenance, repair and operating products and services, which operates primarily in North America, Japan and the U.K. The company currently sports a Zacks Rank #1.

W.W. Grainger has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 4.35%, on average. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for W.W. Grainger’s 2022 has moved north by 0.9% to $26.29 per share over the past 60 days.

Ulta Beauty is a leading beauty retailer in the United States, which offers a wide range of products, including cosmetics, fragrance, skincare, hair care, bath and body products, and salon styling tools in stores. The company currently carries a Zacks Rank #2.

Ulta Beauty has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 49.84%, on average. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2023 earnings has moved north by 7.9% to $20.07 per share over the past 30 days.

Broadcom is a designer, developer and global supplier of a broad range of semiconductor devices focused on complex digital and mixed-signal complementary metal oxide semiconductor-based devices and analog III-V-based products. The company currently carries a Zacks Rank #2.

Broadcom has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 2.19%, on average. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its 2022 earnings has moved north by 3.6% to $36.96 per share over the past 30 days.

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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: https://www.zacks.com/performance.

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