Amid a broader post-election rally, quite a few stocks have hit fresh 52-week highs with Sterling Infrastructure STRL being one that stands out in particular.
Soaring over +120% year to date, STRL printed a fresh peak of $201 a share in Monday’s trading session and investors may be wondering if higher highs are ahead.
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Sterling’s Strong Q3 Results
Mission-critical projects including data center projects have catapulted Sterling’s growth. Reporting its Q3 results last Wednesday, Sterling achieved 89% operating income growth in its E-Infrastructure solutions segment. Furthermore, total net income increased 56% to $61.3 million or $1.97 per share compared to EPS of $1.26 in the comparative quarter (also a 56% increase).
Surpassing Q3 EPS estimates of $1.68, Sterling has exceeded earnings expectations for seven consecutive quarters posting an average EPS surprise of 21.5% in its last four quarterly reports. This was despite Q3 sales of $593.74 million missing estimates of $599.9 million although this was a 6% increase from $560.35 million a year ago.
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Other Financial Highlights
Other financial highlights during Q3 included Sterling’s EBITDA expanding 42% to $100.8 million and a record gross margin of 21.9% compared to 16.4% in the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, Sterling’s cash & equivalents climbed 42% to $648.12 million versus $409.39 million at the end of Q3 2023.
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Monitoring Sterling’s Valuation (P/E)
With Sterling’s growth starting to separate the company from many of its competitors, STRL trades at 32.4X forward earnings which isn’t a stretched premium to its Zacks Engineering-R and D Services Industry average of 25.8X.
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Rising EPS Estimates
Most intriguing is that earnings estimate revisions for fiscal 2024 and FY25 are up 5% and 1% in the last week respectively. Based on Zacks estimates, Sterling is now expected to post 33% EPS growth this year with its bottom line projected to expand another 2% in FY25 to $6.11 per share.
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Bottom Line
Starting to benefit from a positive trend of earnings estimate revisions, Sterling Infrastructure's stock sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).
As one of the hottest stocks in recent years it would be no surprise if STRL shares continued to rise and make new highs. To that point, Sterling has a strong backlog of over $2 billion and continues to move toward large, multi-phase infrastructure projects.
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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
