3 Underfollowed Stocks With Solid Potential

What can be more lucrative than buying a quality stock during a pullback? Buying a stock that the market doesn’t know is quality yet. That’s the idea behind our “Underfollowed Gems” premium screen.

On average, an S&P stock is covered by 14 analysts. So if a name is only being followed by six or fewer, it hasn’t attracted the full attention of the market. In fact, it hasn’t even captured half the interest of the market yet. And if that stock is a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or #2 (Buy), it means the market is missing out on a company with rising earnings estimates. But it won’t miss out for long, and the share price will appreciate as more and more analysts realize what they’ve been missing.

Below, you’ll find three highly-ranked stocks that met the criteria of this screen. The analysts that are watching these companies have raised their earnings estimates after solid quarterly reports. For the full list and the screen’s parameters, make sure to click the link above.

Huntsman Corporation (HUN – Free Report)

Huntsman’s proposed merger with Clariant was called off late last month…but luckily this specialty chemicals company has been doing just fine by itself. In fact, it is doing better than just “fine”, having gained more than 63% year to date. It has more than doubled the Chemical-Diversified industry, which is in the top 27% of the Zacks Industry Rank but has only gained about 27% this year.

In the last five years, Huntsman has only missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate twice, and it is currently on an 11-quarter winning streak. In the third quarter report, earnings of 67 cents per share beat our expectation by 34% while also more than doubling last year’s 31 cents. The four-quarter average beat is now approximately 33%.

Revenues improved to $2.17 billion from $1.83 billion a year earlier.

Despite its strong quarter and history, there are only four covering analysts in Zacks research for HUN…and they have all raised their estimates over the past 30 days. Right now, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for this year is $2.61 per share, which has gained 15.5% from a month ago.