Finding companies with the criteria you want isn’t always easy. You could spend hours searching ticker after ticker, only to find companies which aren’t worthy of your hard earned cash. An easier way to navigate through this is by using high quality stock screeners. Screening helps investors narrow down companies to invest in based on their ability to meet every criteria selected.  Any company who misses even one of the criteria requirements will be filtered out.

This lets one easily choose ideal metrics. Screens are effective because they sift out bad stocks and only keep the cream of the crop in.  It isn’t always easy to create an effective screen. Our Zacks Premium Screens have helped with this, bringing profits to many investors over time.  Our predefined criteria are chosen carefully to capture special kinds of companies.

Today, we’ve dug up three tech stocks using one of our premium screens known as “Zacks #1 Growth Stocks”. Some of the metrics of this screen is that the stock must have an average trading volume of at least 100,000 shares over the last 20 days, a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), and expected earnings growth north of 20% this year. In addition to using the metrics on this great screen, I’ve added an additional metric which I feel is appropriate for investing in growth stocks 

I screened for stocks with a PEG under one. The PEG we use applies a 3-5 year projected growth rate. This was done so that I could find companies that are trading at a discount relative to their expected growth rate. Let’s see what our modified premium screen has found for us today.

Emergent Biosolutions Inc-(EBS - Analyst Report)

Emergent is a leading biopharmaceutical company that manufactures vaccines and therapeutics in order to help boost the immune system. The company’s solutions are also developed so that they can treat and prevent diseases. EBS is a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), and also sees a healthy average daily trading volume of 432,794 shares. The company expects to grow its earnings by 22.5% this year. 

It helps that Emergent has a PEG of just 0.87. This tech stock’s price-to-earnings-to-growth ratio is below one, which suggests that this company may be undervalued. If Emergent can meet or exceed earnings expectations, it could see significant share price appreciation. Emergent has beaten our EPS Consensus in each of the last three quarters, so the company has a great history of topping earnings expectations. Hopefully, the company can deliver great results again when it reports its earnings in the beginning of May.

Orbotech Ltd-(ORBK - Snapshot Report)

Orbotech is a global leader in the development and manufacturing of AOI (automated optical inspection systems). ORBK has a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), and also trades at a price-to-sales of just 1.34. The company saw an average daily trading volume of 333,798 shares over the last 20 days. Orbotech’s EPS is projected to grow by 21.06% this year. Like EBS, ORBK’s low PEG of 0.54 suggests that it could be undervalued right now. 

This stock is not too big, having only a market cap of just a billion dollars. It might be wise to take advantage of this company, which saw amazing free cash flows in 2015. Orbotech also has a nice capital structure, with debt-to-equity of just 0.39.

MaxLinear Inc-(MXL - Snapshot Report) 

MaxLinear provides radio-frequency analog and mixed signal semiconductor solutions for broadband communications applications.  Like every other stock discussed in this article, MaxLinear holds a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).  MaxLinear has seen unusually high volume lately, with an average daily volume of 1,454,296 shares.  Higher volumes of daily share transactions are a good indicator for finding stocks that are being bought up.  When a stock is in high demand, prices can quickly climb higher. Over the last month, MXL shares have risen 18%.

MXL has high growth expectations, with EPS projected to increase by 45.21% this year. When you add in the fact that this candidate trades at a PEG of 0.78 and a PE of just 13.64, it’s hard to dispute why investors have been buying up shares of MaxLinear.

Bottom Line

Employing a high growth strategy can be volatile. When taking risks on the growth potential of certain companies, you’ll probably want to see that shares are trading at a reasonable valuation relative to expected earnings growth. One magical screening ingredient which can’t be overlooked is the Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). The rank helps to find companies which look like dependable earnings candidates.