These companies outperformed the S&P 500 in 2021
Summary With 2021 coming to a close, investors are looking ahead to a new year and are searching for new value opportunities to take advantage of. Despite headwinds from new variants of the Covid-19 virus, supply chain disruptions and rising inflation causing concern, investors may find value prospects among industrial companies that outperformed the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index by at least 20% over the past 12 months. According to GuruFocus’ Industry Overview, sectors in this portion of the market include industrial products, transportation, aerospace and defense and business services, among others. As of Dec.29, the GuruFocus All-in-One Screener, a Premium feature, found several stocks that had a higher return relative to the index for the period. It also looked for companies with a business predictability rank of at least one out of five stars, a 10-year revenue per share growth rate of at least 1% and a price-earnings ratio below 15. Stocks that met these criteria were Amerco Inc. ( UHAL, Financial), Builders FirstSource Inc BLDR. ( BLDR, Financial) and Louisiana-Pacific LPX Corp. ( LPX, Financial). The benchmark index has posted a return of roughly 27.46% for the year. Amerco Outperforming the index by approximately 30.94% over the past 12 months, Amerco ( UHAL, Financial) has a $14.15 billion market cap; its shares were trading around $721.85 on Wednesdaywith a price-earnings ratio of 14, a price-book ratio of 2.55 and a price-sales ratio of 2.63. The Peter Lynch chart suggests the stock is undervalued. The Reno, Nevada-based company, which owns rental truck operator U-Haul, has a GuruFocus financial strength rating of 4 out of 10. Despite issuing approximately $1.5 billion in new long-term debt, it is at a manageable level due to adequate interest coverage. The low Altman Z-Score of 2, however, indicates it is under some pressure since assets are building up at a faster rate than revenue is growing.
