Cinemark Shows Fast-Paced Momentum But Is Still a Bargain Stock

Momentum investors typically don't time the market or "buy low and sell high." In other words, they avoid betting on cheap stocks and waiting long for them to recover. Instead, they believe that "buying high and selling higher" is the way to make far more money in lesser time.

Everyone likes betting on fast-moving trending stocks, but it isn't easy to determine the right entry point. These stocks often lose momentum when their future growth potential fails to justify their swelled-up valuation. In that phase, investors find themselves invested in shares that have limited to no upside or even a downside. So, betting on a stock just by looking at the traditional momentum parameters could be risky at times.

A safer approach could be investing in bargain stocks with recent price momentum. While the Zacks Momentum Style Score helps identify great momentum stocks by paying close attention to trends in a stock's price or earnings, our 'Fast-Paced Momentum at a Bargain' screen comes handy in spotting fast-moving stocks that are still attractively priced.

There are several stocks that currently pass through the screen and Cinemark Holdings CNK is one of them. Here are the key reasons why this stock is a great candidate.

A dash of recent price momentum reflects growing interest of investors in a stock. With a four-week price change of 0.3%, the stock of this movie theater owner is certainly well-positioned in this regard.

While any stock can see a spike in price for a short period, it takes a real momentum player to deliver positive returns for a longer time frame. CNK meets this criterion too, as the stock gained 3.3% over the past 12 weeks.

Moreover, the momentum for CNK is fast paced, as the stock currently has a beta of 2.25. This indicates that the stock moves 125% higher than the market in either direction.

Given this price performance, it is no surprise that CNK has a Momentum Score of A, which indicates that this is the right time to enter the stock to take advantage of the momentum with the highest probability of success.

In addition to a favorable Momentum Score, an upward trend in earnings estimate revisions has helped CNK earn a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Our research shows that the momentum-effect is quite strong among Zacks Rank #1 and #2 stocks. That's because as covering analysts raise their earnings estimates for a stock, more and more investors take an interest in it, helping its price race to keep up.

Most importantly, despite possessing fast-paced momentum features, CNK is trading at a reasonable valuation. In terms of Price-to-Sales ratio, which is considered as one of the best valuation metrics, the stock looks quite cheap now. CNK is currently trading at 0.72 times its sales. In other words, investors need to pay only 72 cents for each dollar of sales.

So, CNK appears to have plenty of room to run, and that too at a fast pace.

In addition to CNK, there are several other stocks that currently pass through our 'Fast-Paced Momentum at a Bargain' screen. You may consider investing in them and start looking for the newest stocks that fit these criteria.

However, keep in mind that the key to a successful stock-picking strategy is to ensure that it produced profitable results in the past. You could easily do that with the help of the Zacks Research Wizard. In addition to allowing you to backtest the effectiveness of your strategy, the program comes loaded with some of our most successful stock-picking strategies.

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