Tax season is over, but on Thursday, the stock Relative Strength (RS) Rating for tax prep and accounting firm H&R Block climbed to a powerful 94, up from 76 the day before. The strong rating jump is a bullish indicator. On Thursday the company rolled out a program to attract more talent. One goal of the program, called IT Accelerate, is to increase diversity among its workforce.
The 90 RS Rating shows that highly ranked H&R Block stock is outperforming 90% of all stocks, regardless of industry group. Market history shows that stocks that go on to make the biggest gains often have an 80 or higher RS Rating as they begin their largest price moves.
Among it other key ratings, H&R Block stock has a good but not yet great 87 Composite Rating. The IBD Composite Rating helps investors easily measure the quality of a stock's fundamental and technical metrics. The best growth stocks have a Composite Rating of 90 or better.
H&R Block Stock Popular With Big Money Investors
Kansas City, Mo.-based H&R Block stock also carries a B- Accumulation/Distribution Rating on an A+ to E scale. The B- rating indicates that institutional investors like mutual funds and ETFs are buying more shares than selling. Its 74 EPS Rating reflects recent weak profit growth.
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H&R Block stock has moved more than 5% past a 26.61 entry in a first-stage consolidation, meaning it's now out of a proper buy zone. Look for the stock to create a new chance to pick up shares like a three-weeks tight or pullback to the 50-day or 10-week moving average.
H&R Block reported quarterly earnings were flat on a year-over-year basis last quarter, at $4.11 per share. Revenue rose a mild 4% to $2.06 billion. H&R stock traded at 29.99 Thursday afternoon amid a 5.6% surge for the day.
The company earns the No. 4 rank among its peers in the Financial Services-Specialty industry group. Encore Capital and FinTech Acquisition II are among the top 5 highly rated stocks in the group.
When looking for the best stocks to buy and watch, one factor to watch closely is relative price strength. IBD's unique RS Rating identifies technical performance by using a 1 (worst) to 99 (best) score that identifies how a stock's price performance over the last 52 weeks matches up against the rest of the market.
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