Should Baidu Inc (NASDAQ:BIDU) Be Your Next Stock Pick?

Building up an investment case requires looking at a stock holistically. Today I’ve chosen to put the spotlight on Baidu Inc (NASDAQ:BIDU) due to its excellent fundamentals in more than one area. BIDU is a company with great financial health as well as a an impressive history of performance. In the following section, I expand a bit more on these key aspects. For those interested in digger a bit deeper into my commentary, take a look at the report on Baidu here.

Flawless balance sheet with proven track record

BIDU delivered a bottom-line expansion of 96.7% in the prior year, with its most recent earnings level surpassing its average level over the last five years. In addition to beating its historical values, BIDU also outperformed its industry, which delivered a growth of 39.2%. This is what investors like to see! BIDU’s strong financial health means that all of its upcoming liability payments are able to be met by its current cash and short-term investment holdings. This indicates that BIDU has sufficient cash flows and proper cash management in place, which is an important determinant of the company’s health. BIDU seems to have put its debt to good use, generating operating cash levels of 0.61x total debt in the most recent year. This is also a good indication as to whether debt is properly covered by the company’s cash flows.

NasdaqGS:BIDU Income Statement Export September 12th 18

Next Steps:

For Baidu, I’ve compiled three essential aspects you should further research:

1. Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for BIDU’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for BIDU’s outlook.

2. Valuation: What is BIDU worth today? Is the stock undervalued, even when its growth outlook is factored into its intrinsic value? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether BIDU is currently mispriced by the market.

3. Other Attractive Alternatives : Are there other well-rounded stocks you could be holding instead of BIDU? Explore our interactive list of stocks with large potential to get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing!

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.

The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.