Good or high score = 7, 8, 9
Bad or low score = 0, 1, 2, 3
US Ecology has an F-score of 5 indicating the company's financial situation is typical for a stable company.
The historical rank and industry rank for US Ecology's Piotroski F-Score or its related term are showing as below:
ECOL'
s Piotroski F-Score Range Over the Past 10 Years
Min: 1 Med: 5 Max: 8
Current: 5
During the past 13 years, the highest Piotroski F-Score of US Ecology was 8. The lowest was 1. And the median was 5.
US Ecology Piotroski F-Score Historical Data
The historical data trend for US Ecology's Piotroski F-Score can be seen below:
* For Operating Data section: All numbers are indicated by the unit behind each term and all currency related amount are in USD. * For other sections: All numbers are in millions except for per share data, ratio, and percentage. All currency related amount are indicated in the company's associated stock exchange currency.
Competitive Comparison of US Ecology's Piotroski F-Score
For the Waste Management subindustry, US Ecology's Piotroski F-Score, along with its competitors' market caps and Piotroski F-Score data, can be viewed below:
* Competitive companies are chosen from companies within the same industry, with headquarter located in same country, with closest market capitalization; x-axis shows the market cap, and y-axis shows the term value; the bigger the dot, the larger the market cap. Note that "N/A" values will not show up in the chart.
US Ecology's Piotroski F-Score Distribution in the Waste Management Industry
For the Waste Management industry and Industrials sector, US Ecology's Piotroski F-Score distribution charts can be found below:
* The bar in red indicates where US Ecology's Piotroski F-Score falls into.
How is the Piotroski F-Score calculated?
* For Operating Data section: All numbers are indicated by the unit behind each term and all currency related amount are in USD. * For other sections: All numbers are in millions except for per share data, ratio, and percentage. All currency related amount are indicated in the company's associated stock exchange currency.
*Note: If the latest quarterly/semi-annual/annual total assets data is 0, then we will use previous quarterly/semi-annual/annual data for all the items in the balance sheet.
Profitability
Question 1. Return on Assets (ROA)
Net income before extraordinary items for the year divided by Total Assets at the beginning of the year.
Score 1 if positive, 0 if negative.
US Ecology's current Net Income (TTM) was -3.
==> Negative ==> Score 0.
Question 2. Cash Flow Return on Assets (CFROA)
Net cash flow from operating activities (operating cash flow) divided by Total Assets at the beginning of the year.
US Ecology's return on assets of this year was -0.00158462. US Ecology's return on assets of last year was -0.04653148.
==> This year is higher. ==> Score 1.
Question 4. Quality of Earnings (Accrual)
Compare Cash flow return on assets (2) to return on assets (1)
US Ecology's gearing of this year was 0.42470462. US Ecology's gearing of last year was 0.42735277.
==> This year is lower or equal to last year. ==> Score 1.
Question 6. Change in Working Capital (Liquidity)
Compare this year's current ratio (current assets divided by current liabilities) to last year's current ratio.
Score 1 if this year's current ratio is higher, 0 if it's lower
US Ecology's current ratio of this year was 1.94619231. US Ecology's current ratio of last year was 2.22498186.
==> Last year's current ratio is higher ==> Score 0.
Question 7. Change in Shares in Issue
Compare the number of shares in issue this year, to the number in issue last year.
Score 0 if there is larger number of shares in issue this year, 1 otherwise.
US Ecology's number of shares in issue this year was 31.208. US Ecology's number of shares in issue last year was 31.104.
==> There is larger number of shares in issue this year. ==> Score 0.
Efficiency
Question 8. Change in Gross Margin
Compare this year's gross margin (Gross Profit divided by sales) to last year's.
Score 1 if this year's gross margin is higher, 0 if it's lower.
US Ecology's gross margin of this year was 0.23353346. US Ecology's gross margin of last year was 0.26100838.
==> Last year's gross margin is higher ==> Score 0.
Question 9. Change in asset turnover
Compare this year's asset turnover (total sales for the year divided by total assets at the beginning of the year) to last year's asset turnover ratio.
Score 1 if this year's asset turnover ratio is higher, 0 if it's lower
US Ecology's asset turnover of this year was 0.54869918. US Ecology's asset turnover of last year was 0.46585153.
==> This year's asset turnover is higher. ==> Score 1.
Evaluation
Piotroski F-Score
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5
Good or high score = 7, 8, 9
Bad or low score = 0, 1, 2, 3
US Ecology has an F-score of 5 indicating the company's financial situation is typical for a stable company.
US Ecology (NAS:ECOL) Piotroski F-Score Explanation
The developer of the system is Joseph D. Piotroski is relatively unknown accounting professor who shuns publicity and rarely gives interviews.
He graduated from the University of Illinois with a B.S. in accounting in 1989, received an M.B.A. from Indiana University in 1994. Five years later, in 1999, after earning a Ph.D. in accounting from the University of Michigan, he became an associate professor of accounting at the University of Chicago.
He wanted to see if he can develop a system (using a simple nine-point scoring system) that can increase the returns of a strategy of investing in low price to book (referred to in the paper as high book to market) value companies.
What he found was something that exceeded his most optimistic expectations.
Buying only those companies that scored highest (8 or 9) on his nine-point scale, or F-Score as he called it, over the 20 year period from 1976 to 1996 led to an average out-performance over the market of 13.4%.
Even more impressive were the results of a strategy of investing in the highest F-Score companies (8 or 9) and shorting companies with the lowest F-Score (0 or 1).
Over the same period from 1976 to 1996 (20 years) this strategy led to an average yearly return of 23%, substantially outperforming the average S&P 500 index return of 15.83% over the same period.
US Ecology Piotroski F-Score Related Terms
Thank you for viewing the detailed overview of US Ecology's Piotroski F-Score provided by GuruFocus.com. Please click on the following links to see related term pages.
US Ecology Inc operates as an environmental service provider to commercial and government entities. The company's operating segments include Waste Solutions, Field Services, and Energy Waste. Waste Solutions provides a broad range of specialty material management services including transportation, recycling, treatment and disposal of hazardous, non-hazardous and radioactive waste; Field Services, provides specialty field services and total waste management solutions to commercial and industrial facilities and to government entities, and Energy Waste provides energy-related services and waste disposal services predominately to upstream energy customers.
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