Investors have been showing renewed interest in companies that provide basic services and materials such as metals and fertilizer. It doesn't get much more basic than renting work clothing for maids, janitors and other workers. It's no surprise that the Relative Strength Rating for leading corporate uniforms and services provider Cintas shot up to 76 Thursday, from 68 the day before.
The new 76 RS Rating shows that Cintas stock tops 76% of all stocks on price performance. Stocks that go on to make the biggest gains typically have an RS Rating of at least 80 as they launch their biggest price moves. See if Cintas can continue to rebound and hit that benchmark.
Cintas Tops In Uniforms, Adjacent Markets
Cintas is known as a leader in selling, renting and cleaning work uniforms and other clothes to 1 million businesses worldwide. It's also active in adjacent markets though, providing fire safety equipment, cleaning and first-aid supplies, and training and facilities services.
Meanwhile, among its other essential ratings Cintas has an 86 Composite Rating, of 99, putting it in the top 14% of stocks on a group of five key metrics. It also has an excellent 92 EPS Rating, and a healthy SMR Rating (sales+profit margins+return on equity) of B, on an A-to-E scale. One yellow flag; it has D Accumulation/Distribution Rating, indicating that institutional investors like mutual funds and ETFs are still wary after Cintas fell during the early 2022 market slump.
Still, both earnings and sales growth accelerated for Cintas last quarter. Earnings grew 25% to $2.97 per share. Over the past three quarters, its EPS growth rate rose from 12% to 16% and then 25%. Revenue rose 10% to $1.96 billion last quarter, also the best in three quarters.
See How IBD Helps You Make More Money In Stocks
Cintas stock hit an all-time high 461.44 on Dec. 13. It slid to 356.61 on Feb. 24 amid the market pullback, then it began climbing. Cintas was up about 1% Thursday afternoon, to 405.26. It's building a consolidation with a 461.54 entry and may be working on the right side of a cup base. See if it can break out in heavy volume.
Leading Commercial Services Peers
Cintas earns the No. 4 rank among its peers in the Commercial Services-Outsourcing industry group. Exlservice and Paychex are also among the group's highest-rated stocks.
When looking for the best stocks to buy and watch, one factor to watch closely is relative price strength.
This exclusive rating from Investor's Business Daily identifies market leadership with a 1 (worst) to 99 (best) score. The grade shows how a stock's price performance over the trailing 52 weeks compares to all the other stocks in our database.
Please follow James DeTar on Twitter @JimDeTar
