Trade-Ideas: Intuit (INTU) Is Today's New Lifetime High Stock

Jamie Hodge for TheStreet writes: Trade-Ideas LLC identified Intuit (INTU) as a new lifetime high candidate. In addition to specific proprietary factors, Trade-Ideas identified Intuit as such a stock due to the following factors:

• INTU has an average dollar-volume (as measured by average daily share volume multiplied by share price) of $118.5 million.

• INTU has traded 1.8 million shares today.

• INTU is trading at a new lifetime high.
• Intuit Inc. provides business and financial management solutions for small businesses, consumers, and accounting professionals in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, India, and Singapore. The stock currently has a dividend yield of 1%. INTU has a PE ratio of 26.8. Currently there are 7 analysts that rate Intuit a buy, no analysts rate it a sell, and 9 rate it a hold.
  The average volume for Intuit has been 2.2 million shares per day over the past 30 days. Intuit has a market cap of $20.6 billion and is part of the technology sector and computer software & services industry. The stock has a beta of 0.88 and a short float of 6.2% with 10.87 days to cover. Shares are up 22.7% year to date as of the close of trading on Thursday.
  TheStreetRatings.com Analysis:
  TheStreet Quant Ratings rates Intuit as a buy. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures, expanding profit margins, increase in stock price during the past year and notable return onequity. We feel these strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had sub par growth in net income.
  Highlights from the ratings report include:
  • INTU's debt-to-equity ratio is very low at 0.14 and is currently below that of the industry average, implying that there has been very successful management of debt levels. Along with the favorable debt-to-equity ratio, the company maintains an adequate quick ratio of 1.45, which illustrates the ability to avoid short-term cash problems.
  • The gross profit margin for INTUIT INC is currently very high, coming in at 87.70%. It has increased from the same quarter the previous year. Regardless of the strong results of the gross profit margin, the net profit margin of -2.52% is in-line with the industry average.
  • INTU's share price is up by an impressive 25.12% over the past year, but this positive result lagged behind an even stronger performance in the stock market as a whole, as reflected in the S&P 500 Index. Regarding the stock's future course, although almost any stock can fall in a broad market decline, INTU should continue to move higher despite the fact that it has already enjoyed a very nice gain in the past year.
  • INTUIT INC's earnings per share declined by 36.4% in the most recent quarter compared to the same quarter a year ago. This company has reported somewhat volatile earnings recently. But, we feel it is poised for EPS growth in the coming year. During the past fiscal year, INTUIT INC increased its bottom line by earning $2.71 versus $2.53 in the prior year. This year, the market expects an improvement in earnings ($3.56 versus $2.71).
  • INTU, with its decline in revenue, slightly underperformed the industry average of 6.7%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues slightly dropped by 2.6%. The declining revenue appears to have seeped down to the company's bottom line, decreasing earnings per share.
  • You can view the full Intuit Ratings Report.