U.S. equities just logged their strongest week of the year, with the S&P 500 rising over 3% as sentiment improved after a period of turbulence. Easing geopolitical tensions and a sharp drop in oil prices helped calm inflation fears and lifted confidence. A midweek surge powered the rebound, with investors rotating back into equities — especially growth-oriented sectors — as global risks appeared to stabilize.
Technology stocks led the advance, highlighting renewed appetite for growth themes like artificial intelligence. However, the backdrop remains fluid. While an earlier ceasefire between the United States and Iran supported markets, the breakdown of peace talks without a resolution has reintroduced the risk of volatility. Even so, investors seem more willing to look through near-term uncertainty as sentiment gradually improves.
In this setting, focusing on relative price strength can help investors stay aligned with market leaders as momentum rebuilds.
At this stage, investors would be wise to consider companies such as Virtu Financial VIRT, Riley Exploration Permian REPX, Penguin Solutions PENG and Cirrus Logic CRUS.
Relative Price Strength Strategy
Whether a stock has the potential to offer considerable returns is determined primarily by its earnings and valuation ratios. Simultaneously, it is essential to check whether its price performance exceeds its peers or the industry average.
Upon such comparison, if we find that a stock is unable to match up to wider sectoral growth despite having impressive earnings momentum or valuation multiples, it may be better to avoid it.
However, those outperforming their respective industries or benchmarks should be included in your portfolio since they have a higher chance of securing significant returns. Picking a stock that outperforms its peers ensures a winning option on your hands.
Then again, it is imperative that you determine whether or not an investment has relevant upside potential when considering stocks with significant relative price strength. Stocks delivering better than the S&P 500 for 1 to 3 months, at least, and having solid fundamentals, indicate room for growth and the best way to go about this strategy.
Finally, it is crucial to find out whether analysts are optimistic about the upcoming earnings of these companies. In order to do this, we have added positive estimate revisions for the current quarter’s (Q1) earnings to our screen. When a stock undergoes an upward revision, it leads to additional price gains.
Screening Parameters
Relative % Price change – 12 weeks greater than 0
Relative % Price change – 4 weeks greater than 0
Relative % Price change – 1 week greater than 0
(We have considered those stocks that have been outperforming the S&P 500 over the last 12 weeks, four weeks and one week.)
% Change (Q1) Est. over 4 Weeks greater than 0: Positive current-quarter estimate revisions over the last four weeks.
Zacks Rank equal to 1: Only Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks — that have returned more than 26% annually over the last 26 years and surpassed the S&P 500 in 23 of the last 26 years — can get through. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Current Price greater than or equal to $5 and Average 20-day Volume greater than or equal to 50,000: A minimum price of $5 is a good standard to screen low-priced stocks, while a high trading volume would imply adequate liquidity.
VGM Score less than or equal to B: Our research shows that stocks with a VGM Score of A or B, when combined with a Zacks Rank #1 or 2 (Buy), offer the best upside potential.
Here are four of the seven stocks that made it through the screen:
Virtu Financial: Based in New York, it leverages cutting-edge technology to provide execution services and data, analytics and connectivity products to its clients and deliver liquidity to the global markets. Over the past 60 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for Virtu Financial’s 2026 earnings has moved up 11.6%. It has a VGM Score of B.
Virtu Financial beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings in each of the last four quarters. It has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of roughly 18.6%, on average. VIRT shares have risen 36.7% in a year.
Riley Exploration Permian: It is a growth-focused upstream oil and gas company operating in Texas and New Mexico. Riley Exploration Permian applies modern drilling techniques, pursues acquisitions, and balances production growth with shareholder returns and disciplined capital management. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 earnings of the company indicates 32.1% growth. REPX has a VGM Score of B.
The firm has a market capitalization of around $900 million. Over the past 60 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for Riley Exploration Permian’s 2026 earnings has gone up 70.6%. REPX’s shares have gained 70.7% in a year.
Penguin Solutions: It is an AI infrastructure company focused on building full-stack platforms that combine advanced computing, memory solutions and software. Penguin Solutions helps enterprises deploy scalable, high-performance AI systems while driving innovation across data-intensive workloads. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2026 earnings of Penguin Solutions indicates 14.2% growth. PENG has a VGM Score of B.
Over the past 60 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for Penguin Solutions’ fiscal 2026 earnings has moved up 6.9%. The company has a market capitalization of $1.2 billion. PENG shares have gone up 43.4% in a year.
Cirrus Logic: Headquartered in Austin, TX, Cirrus Logic is a semiconductor supplier, which develops low-power, high-precision mixed-signal processing solutions. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2026 earnings of the company indicates 20.2% growth. CRUS has a VGM Score of A.
Cirrus Logic has a market capitalization of $8.2 billion. It beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings in each of the last four quarters, with the average being 31.8%. Cirrus Logic shares have surged 89% in a year.
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Cirrus Logic, Inc. (CRUS): Free Stock Analysis Report
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).