This week, Zacks Chief Equity Strategist and Economist John Blank, PhD discusses:

• Top stocks in the Basic Materials sector, a huge, worldwide topic that includes industries such as Chemicals, Paper, Steel, Non-Ferrous Metals, and Agribusiness. As he has done in recent analyses, John defines “top” stocks in three ways: by market capitalization, by number of analysts following the stock, and by largest percent change in F1 EPS estimate (the most important element used in assigning a Zacks Rank to stocks).

• Using this framework, John then examines key metrics for these leading names, using Zacks charting to illustrate comparisons of the most relevant trends for these companies. To point out strengths and weaknesses among these stocks, he looks at metrics ranging from Revenue F12M, EPS F12M, EPS Consensus, EPS Surprise, Net Margin TTM %, Return on Capital TTM %, and other measures.

• Because he uses these 3 types of screening metrics, John’s review of “top” players includes everything from enormous (and sometimes state-owned) corporations to small and often fairly new enterprises. Among the Basic Materials tickers he looks at are Linde PLC (LIN), Southern Copper (SCCO), Ecolab Inc (ECL), Klabin SA ADR (KLBAY), Perimeter Solutions SA (PRM), Steel Dynamics Inc (STLD), and many others. Don’t miss this in-depth equity analysis of the companies that produce the basics that we use to make just about everything!