Forget $1 Million. To Feel Wealthy, You Need $5 Million in Assets

High-net-worth and affluent investors define wealth as being able to live life with no financial constraints, and feel $5 million is the minimum needed to be considered wealthy, according to the recent UBS Investor Watch, a quarterly survey.

The survey of 4,450 investors found that 69% of those with more than $1 million in investable assets did not consider themselves wealthy.

Half of respondents defined wealth as having no financial constraints, while only 10% said it meant never having to work again and 9% said it was being able to afford a luxurious lifestyle.

While the ability to afford healthcare and long-term care was the top personal concern for 27% of investors, 20% said their children’s and grandchildren’s financial situations were most important, 14% listed the ability to afford retirement and 14% the potential to outlive their assets.

The survey found that 82% of respondents most enjoyed financially helping their grandchildren, 76% their adult children and 59% their parents. Two-thirds of those with adult children ages 18 to 39 currently supported them financially.

Twenty-three percent of investors continued to hold high levels of cash, and used these holdings as a way to reduce their risk level.

“Investors are using significant cash holdings as a type of ‘security blanket’ to give themselves peace of mind, but also to allow them to feel comfortable getting out there and participating in the market again,” Emily Pachuta, head of investor insights at UBS Wealth Management Americas, said in a statement.

“This has translated to a greater confidence—and faith—in the economy over the long term despite investors’ expectations of continued market volatility in the near term.”

Eighty-five percent of respondents said they felt more confident when their financial plan was dedicated to long-term healthcare expenses and to providing financial support across multiple generations. Confidence dropped to 57% with a more traditional financial plan.

Investor Watch found that 80% of investors thought about their assets as different buckets, with varying risk/return profiles, based on their expected use, such as savings, necessary purchases and recreational spending. 

Respondents viewed the Fed’s ending stimulus as positive for the long term, albeit with a short-term negative effect. Fifty-nine percent said they were not changing their investment strategy as a result of the Fed’s announcement.

Other key findings include:

Accenture Wins U.S. & Scotland Deals - Analyst Blog

Accenture plc.(ACN) is seeing a steady flow of deals. "Accenture Federal Services" has secured a blanket order from the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). The $64.0 million deal has a one-year base period and four one-year renewal options.

The deal, which ensures indefinite delivery as well as quantity, will help the U.S. SEC to include Oracle development services in its IT operations. This is an extremely customer-friendly system that would help reduce costs while improving performance. It will help clients and customers to file registrations, meet compliance norms, examination requirements and also enable them to share data efficiently.

Moreover, the Scotland Police Department has selected Accenture to maintain and develop the new i6, an operational policing system, for Police Scotland. This advanced system will standardize the national policing process and will also help to improve the efficiency of the day-to-day policing operations and investigations. The 10-year contract, with a two-year extension period, is expected to help and support the policing system of the Scotland Police Department.

The "Accenture Police Services" will provide the technology and implementation services to Police Scotland to drive operational and process efficiencies and facilitate smooth information sharing.

The increase in deal wins and order renewals is evident from Accenture's third-quarter bookings growth. Improved bookings growth coupled with good performances in insurance, banking and healthcare sectors reflect a strong demand for Accenture's services, which in turn are boosting its long-term growth prospects.

On the other hand, stiff competition from Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp and IBM Corp. (IBM), a strained spending environment and Accenture's broad European exposure (roughly 40.0%) may temper its growth prospects to some extent.

Currently, Accenture has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Investors can also look at other well-performing technolog! y stocks such as Huron Consulting Group Inc. (HURN) and Towers Watson (TW). Both the companies carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) and are worth buying.

Here's How Prestige Brands Holdings Is Making You So Much Cash

Although business headlines still tout earnings numbers, many investors have moved past net earnings as a measure of a company's economic output. That's because earnings are very often less trustworthy than cash flow, since earnings are more open to manipulation based on dubious judgment calls.

Earnings' unreliability is one of the reasons Foolish investors often flip straight past the income statement to check the cash flow statement. In general, by taking a close look at the cash moving in and out of the business, you can better understand whether the last batch of earnings brought money into the company, or merely disguised a cash gusher with a pretty headline.

Calling all cash flows
When you are trying to buy the market's best stocks, it's worth checking up on your companies' free cash flow once a quarter or so, to see whether it bears any relationship to the net income in the headlines. That's what we do with this series. Today, we're checking in on Prestige Brands Holdings (NYSE: PBH  ) , whose recent revenue and earnings are plotted below.

Source: S&P Capital IQ. Data is current as of last fully reported fiscal quarter. Dollar values in millions. FCF = free cash flow. FY = fiscal year. TTM = trailing 12 months.

Over the past 12 months, Prestige Brands Holdings generated $127.3 million cash while it booked net income of $65.5 million. That means it turned 20.4% of its revenue into FCF. That sounds pretty impressive.

All cash is not equal
Unfortunately, the cash flow statement isn't immune from nonsense, either. That's why it pays to take a close look at the components of cash flow from operations, to make sure that the cash flows are of high quality. What does that mean? To me, it means they need to be real and replicable in the upcoming quarters, rather than being offset by continual cash outflows that don't appear on the income statement (such as major capital expenditures).

For instance, cash flow based on cash net income and adjustments for non-cash income-statement expenses (like depreciation) is generally favorable. An increase in cash flow based on stiffing your suppliers (by increasing accounts payable for the short term) or shortchanging Uncle Sam on taxes will come back to bite investors later. The same goes for decreasing accounts receivable; this is good to see, but it's ordinary in recessionary times, and you can only increase collections so much. Finally, adding stock-based compensation expense back to cash flows is questionable when a company hands out a lot of equity to employees and uses cash in later periods to buy back those shares.

So how does the cash flow at Prestige Brands Holdings look? Take a peek at the chart below, which flags questionable cash flow sources with a red bar.

Source: S&P Capital IQ. Data is current as of last fully reported fiscal quarter. Dollar values in millions. TTM = trailing 12 months.

When I say "questionable cash flow sources," I mean items such as changes in taxes payable, tax benefits from stock options, and asset sales, among others. That's not to say that companies booking these as sources of cash flow are weak, or are engaging in any sort of wrongdoing, or that everything that comes up questionable in my graph is automatically bad news. But whenever a company is getting more than, say, 10% of its cash from operations from these dubious sources, investors ought to make sure to refer to the filings and dig in.

With 23.1% of operating cash flow coming from questionable sources, Prestige Brands Holdings investors should take a closer look at the underlying numbers. Within the questionable cash flow figure plotted in the TTM period above, other operating activities (which can include deferred income taxes, pension charges, and other one-off items) provided the biggest boost, at 20.3% of cash flow from operations. Overall, the biggest drag on FCF came from changes in accounts receivable, which represented 9.4% of cash from operations.

A Foolish final thought
Most investors don't keep tabs on their companies' cash flow. I think that's a mistake. If you take the time to read past the headlines and crack a filing now and then, you're in a much better position to spot potential trouble early. Better yet, you'll improve your odds of finding the underappreciated home-run stocks that provide the market's best returns.

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We can help you keep tabs on your companies with My Watchlist, our free, personalized stock tracking service.

Add Prestige Brands Holdings to My Watchlist.

Will Your Flight Arrive on Time This Summer?

As the summer travel season heats up, vacationers who are traveling by plane naturally want to know if their flights will arrive on time this summer. The last thing most travelers want to do is spend lots of extra time in the airport, rather than on the beach!

Unfortunately, the summer tends to be the worst season for air travel delays. Since demand is higher from June to August than for the rest of the year, airlines schedule more flights. If severe thunderstorms -- or worse, tropical storms -- slow departures and arrivals in some of the major hub cities, there's no slack in the system. The potential result is rippling delays and cancellations nationwide.

If you happen to be flying on a day when severe weather hits the country, brace yourself for some long delays. On the other hand, if the weather cooperates, you may have a decent chance of arriving on time this summer, as airlines have cut a lot of capacity in recent years. However, a lot will depend on where you're coming from and where you're going. The most crowded airports in the country will be as busy as ever. If you're flying to or from the likes of New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles, you should be prepared to be late.

Big is the new small
As I wrote back in April, airlines are increasingly favoring larger planes these days. Larger planes are almost always cheaper to operate on a per-seat basis, so as long as there's enough demand to fill the extra seats, it makes sense to "up-gauge." In many cases, it's more profitable to offer a few flights on large airplanes rather than many flights on small regional jets. This industry shift toward larger planes means that airlines have been cutting a lot of flights at small- and medium-sized airports.

Hubs in smaller markets such as Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Memphis have been particularly hard hit. Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL  ) and United Continental are two carriers that have realized they're better off directing traffic through their larger hub cities, such as Detroit, Chicago, and Atlanta. As a result, airports in medium-size cities all have many fewer flights today than they had before the Great Recession. As a result, these airports are likely to experience fewer delays than was previously the case.

The favored few
On the other hand, there are a handful of airports that continue to have chronic delays, because they're highly desirable to the airlines. The three major New York airports -- LaGuardia, JFK, and Newark -- top that list. The two major Chicago airports -- O'Hare and Midway -- also tend to be very busy, as do a few other airports, including Washington's Reagan National Airport.

A rendering of Delta's hub at JFK Airport (courtesy of Delta)

Many of these airports are slot-controlled, meaning the government has capped the number of flights that airlines are permitted to schedule, To mitigate delays. These slots are highly sought after. For example, JetBlue Airways (NASDAQ: JBLU  ) bid $40 million for eight slot-pairs (the rights to operate eight round trips) at Reagan National Airport in late 2011. On peak days, airlines will use every single slot that they own at these popular airports.

Delays ahead?
On busy summer travel days, it's very easy for minor problems (often weather-related) to cause major headaches at these airports. For example, in March of this year -- a lighter travel month -- approximately 80% of flights in the U.S. arrived on time (officially, any flight that arrives within 14 minutes of the scheduled time is considered on time). However, at New York's JFK Airport, that figure was 77%; at LaGuardia, it was 73%, and at Newark, it was just 67%.

If you have to fly through one of the busiest airports in the country this summer, your best bet is to drag yourself out of bed and fly early in the morning. When delays hit the busiest airports, they tend to "cascade," getting worse throughout the day, because there's no spare capacity to catch up once delays creep into the schedule.

For example, in April, flights scheduled to arrive before 1 p.m. at 29 of the busiest airports in the U.S. arrived on time more than 80% of the time. However, flights scheduled to arrive between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. were on time less than 70% of the time. At Newark Airport -- one of United's largest hubs and often the most-delayed airport in the country -- morning flights were near the national average in terms of timeliness, but nearly half of all flights scheduled to arrive after 4 p.m. were late!

Bring a book (or a movie)
If you're lucky enough to be avoiding the most congested airports this summer, you have a good chance to get where you're going in a timely fashion, as airlines have been continually pruning their schedules for the past several years. This move has reduced delays in many mid-sized cities that have significantly fewer flights today than they did a few years ago.

By contrast, airlines are still cramming as many flights as they can into the busiest airports in the country. On the heaviest travel days, inclement weather or any other disruption can cause massive cascading delays at these airports, leading to nightmarish delays in the evenings. If you can use alternative airports to get where you're going, the extra driving time might save you a lot of aggravation. If not, your best bet is to fly early in the day.

On the other hand, if you're flying through busy airports in big cities such as New York or Chicago during the afternoon or evening this summer, my advice to you is to bring a book!

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Diagnosing Today's Dow Performance

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI  ) has been having a difficult time this morning deciding whether or not it wants to be up or down. This may stem from the continued confusion on behalf of investors as they try to decipher new economic data as a means to predict the Fed's stance on its current stimulus policy. Though the index dropped and rebounded a few times so far in trading, it's currently sitting at a 33-point gain just before 11:45 a.m. EDT.

Economic news
This morning investors were given mixed economic data regarding income and spending and consumer confidence. Both personal income and consumer spending were down 0.1% in April, which disappointed analysts and investors alike. Expectations were set for a 0.1% increase for income and flat spending for the month. Coupled with this morning's consumer confidence data, which is now back to pre-recession highs, the mixed data signals a disconnect in the economic recovery. Though confidence in the recovery may be high, the improvements have not yet reached the average household's billfold.

This mix of data provides just one more piece to the puzzle as investors try to find signs that the Fed will begin paring back its current stimulus plan. This week alone, investors have gotten news that unemployment figures are up, housing prices are rising, pending home sales are up, and now personal income and spending are down. This seemingly conflicting data leaves investors with little confidence as to how they should proceed in the markets.

Inside the Dow
Health-related component stocks are putting a drag on the Dow's forward momentum, with Merck (NYSE: MRK  ) being the only exception. Up 0.93% this morning, the drugmaker is enjoying the boost from its recently announced third-quarter dividend. Matching its previous payouts, the company will distribute $0.43 per share on July 8.

Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG  ) is down 1.55% in trading, despite a resounding endorsement from activist investor Bill Ackman, who recently stated that P&G is one of the best companies in the world. Ackman's comments may have seemed like a backhanded compliment to some investors. He noted that the company is under-earning compared to its abilities, with a prediction that earnings per share will rise from $4 to $6 -- an encouraging upside. The return of A.G. Lafley to the role of CEO was initially well recieved, but investors may now be rethinking the return of a former CEO, bringing questions to light about his previous tenure and what it means for him to return.

Pfizer (NYSE: PFE  ) is down 0.91% this morning. The drug manufacturer is making more moves to clean up its operations with a sale of its Bristol, Tenn., manufacturing plant to Baltimore-based UPM Pharmaceuticals. Earlier this week, Pfizer issued $4 billion in new bonds to pay off other debts, a move not taken by the company since 2009.

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Pentagon Pays Millions for Training, Drones, and Dredging

The Department of Defense awarded more than $456 million worth of contracts Thursday. Publicly traded companies receiving contracts included:

Orion Marine Group (NYSE: ORN  ) , which won a firm-fixed-price contract for up to $7 million to perform dredging services for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Concordia Parish, La. Boeing (NYSE: BA  ) drone-building subsidiary Insitu, awarded a $7.9 million delivery order to perform maintenance work on ScanEagle Unmanned Aerial Systems through September 2013. BAE Systems (NASDAQOTH: BAESY  ) , awarded a $15.4 million modification to a previously awarded contract to supply propulsor systems for Virginia-class nuclear fast-attack submarines. Delivery is to take place by May 2015. L-3 Communications (NYSE: LLL  ) , which won a sizable $53 million indefinite-delivery requirements contract to provide logistics support for Navy TH-57 Sea Ranger utility helicopters. L-3 will perform repairs and/or overhaul of aircraft, engines, avionics, and related components as required, through June 2014.  Cubic Corporation (NYSE: CUB  ) , winner of a $75.8 million contract modification on a previously awarded cost-plus-award-fee contract to provide Army combat training in support of the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, La. DoD noted that the cumulative value of the underlying contract has exceeded $680 million as the result of this add-on.

Nuverra's Solid Acquisition Extends Its Bakken Dominance

In the first day of trading under its new name, Nuverra Environmental Solutions (NYSE: NES  ) proved two things. First, the company proved that its growth by acquisition strategy wasn't going away with the old name. Second, it proved that it could make good on its promise to move into solid waste disposal. Both were accomplished after the company found an ideal asset to add to its burgeoning portfolio of environmental solutions.

This latest acquisition, Ideal Oilfield Disposal, is a greenfield oil-field disposal landfill located in North Dakota. Nuverra has always said that it sees solid waste disposal as the next logical step for the company as it grows is portfolio of full-cycle environmental solutions for the oil and gas industry. While no financial terms were disclosed, the deal is expected to be accretive to earnings and add about $18 million-$20 million in annual revenue.

Currently, the site isn't operational and the company anticipates that it will need to spend an additional $6 million-$8 million in capital this year to bring the facility on line. Once it is operational, the 60-acre site has a permitted capacity of over 1.7 million cubic yards of airspace which Nuverra believes can be expanded to 5.8 million cubic yards in the future.

What you might be wondering is why Nuverra is buying a landfill. You can't think of this facility as something akin to a Waste Management residential waste facility. This is a specialized facility to be a permanent solution for the drill cuttings from drilling an oil and gas well.

You don't hear too much about drill cuttings; there are currently a variety of disposal methods such as burial pits or land farming that are used to dispose of these cuttings. However, because these cuttings can contain naturally occurring radioactive material, salt, and other harmful substances, energy companies need to handle these materials with care. Further, because of the radiation levels that can be emitted by these cuttings, a traditional landfill like those of Waste Management won't work because the levels can be high enough to trigger a landfill's radiation sensor.

Nuverra's disposal solution takes the risk of handling these cuttings out of the hands of drillers; it can offer this solution as part of its full-cycle, closed-loop, environmental solution. Further, as environmental regulations surrounding solid waste from drill sites change, Nuverra will be at the forefront of providing solutions to its customers. This first facility, which is located in the Bakken, gives Nuverra an important additional service to offer its customers in the region.

Last year Hess (NYSE: HES  ) and Whiting (NYSE: WLL  ) represented 33% and 25%, respectively, of Bakken-based Power Fuel's revenue before it merged with Nuverra. Both companies represent big future opportunities, as Hess expects to drill 175 wells this year and has plans to double its daily production by 2015, while Whiting sees the potential for more than 4,000 future wells on its Northern Rockies acreage. If Nuverra can continue to work with both companies to capture that growth and up-sell value-added services like solid waste, then it speaks to a bright future for the company. 

Those are just some of the reasons why this looks like a very solid acquisition for Nuverra. While I'd liked to have seen more financial disclosure, I'll take the company at its word that the deal is accretive to earnings. The big bonus here is that the site is located in the Bakken, a play which is likely just 10% developed, which means that there's the potential for decades of growth ahead.

Another company that will benefit from that growth is Kodiak Oil & Gas. The company is truly a dynamic growth story -- it offers great opportunities, but with those opportunities come great risks. If you don't know much about Kodiak, let us help you with your due diligence. To learn more about Kodiak and whether it is a good long term buy, you're invited to check out The Motley Fool's premium research report on the company, which comes with a full year of updates and analysis as key news breaks. To get started simply click here now.

Rosetta Stone Carves Brand Image With New Opportunities

The following video excerpt was taken from an interview with Steve Swad, CEO of Rosetta Stone (NYSE: RST  ) , in which he talks about his business philosophy, and how it is driving success both for language learners and for the company itself. In this segment, he discusses how acquisition opportunities and new customers will further Rosetta Stone's brand.

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Matt Argersinger: So you mentioned on the last call that Rosetta Stone now kind of is in position with the balance sheet that you guys have a little bit of flexibility with cash to go after maybe some acquisitions.

Steve Swad: Yes.

Matt: Any sense of what an acquisition might look like and what you guys would be looking to add capability-wise?

Swad: I mean we're in the market looking. Earlier this week I was talking to companies, and it's something that will speed this strategy that I -- something that will accelerate our brand. New products would be wonderful, that we could modify a little bit and put a Rosetta Stone touch on or expand the distribution, new geographical locations. But take those pillars that we talked about and then are there companies that can help us accelerate within those pillars?

Matt: And what about kind of a strategy of targeting new institutional customers? That was also brought up in the recent call. Any details on that strategy or how it's going?

Swad: That business is run by one of our newer leaders, Judy Verses, and she's doing a wonderful job. She came from Blackboard. And she's in Tokyo as we speak talking to some large potential customers. I would say there's not a week that goes by that Judy's team is not talking to large customers to try to penetrate what is an enormous market around the world.

Matt: Do you think opportunities there are bigger than they are on the retail side?

Swad: They're both big. That's a great question, actually. The market itself, the retail side or consumer side is bigger, but both are enormous. You've heard me say it's an $80 billion global market and our locations, we participate in about $40 billion. That's plenty, and we're a little, tiny $270 million company, so we've got a lot of ad room in the consumer market and in the institutional markets.

New Study on Advisor Satisfaction Invokes Chickens, Eggs

In the case of broker and customer satisfaction, which comes first, the chicken or the egg?

Do satisfied customers lead to satisfied brokers? Or are customers satisfied when their brokers are?

It's a question I asked Craig Martin, director of investment services at J.D. Power and Associates and the lead on the new 2013 U.S. Financial Advisor Satisfaction study. The study measures satisfaction among advisors who are employed directly with an investment services firm, as well as those who are affiliated with, but independently operated from, a broker-dealer. Among the findings: Overall satisfaction among advisors is up since 2010; advisors want their firms to focus more on customers than on profits, and nearly a third of all advisors are ambivalent about their firm, which could ultimately cause them to change firms.

The top firms in the employee segment were Edward Jones, Raymond James and Associates, UBS (NYSE: UBS  ) Financial Services, Merrill Lynch Financial Management , Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC  ) , and Chase. In the independent-advisor segment, the highest-ranked firms were Commonwealth Financial Network, Cambridge Investment Research, Raymond James Financial Services, Northwestern Mutual, and LPL Financial. J.D. Power looked at factors including compensation, contact, people, job duties, work environment, products and offerings to clients, technology, and services and support offered to financial advisors.

The results of the 2013 Customer Satisfaction Survey will be released in May, but if last year's dual studies are any indication, the results of the two will dovetail very closely. That's what I found in covering last year's studies, and Martin says it's likely to be similar this year. And, he says, that's to be expected year after year. "People are generally happier when they're successful," he told me, "and for an advisor to be successful, he or she has to be able to serve their clients. The question is, how do you create a level of engagement you want with a customer, one that not just satisfies them, but truly makes them an advocate of your firm, one who tells their friends and is loyal?"

That, Martin says, only comes when advisors are supported by their firm. With 40% of advisors saying they experienced a technological or paperwork issue in the past year, how those issues are handled makes a difference in advisor satisfaction, and ultimately, customer satisfaction. "The higher-services firms prevent the challenges that prevent advisors from being in front of the client," Martin says. "Those at the top eliminate issues and limit the impact to the advisor on a daily basis."

But what does all this happiness mean for investors? Ultimately, very little. Martin says that although J.D. Power hasn't done any studies on the impacts of their reports on share prices, he suspects there aren't any dramatic changes. "This [report] isn't a surprise. It's a validation," he says. "If you're losing customers and losing advisors, that's going to have a bottom-line impact, and will show up long before our review."

So, which comes first? A happy customer or a happy advisor? Martin has the formula: "The advisor must like their firm. The customer must like the advisor. The customer then is an advocate for the firm."

More from The Motley Fool
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Pier 1 Imports shares fall 11%

Foot traffic is down at Pier 1 stores. NEW YORK (CNNMoney) Pier 1 Imports is the latest retailer to disappoint Wall Street.

Shares plunged as much as 11% in after-hours trading Wednesday after the company said profit was nearly cut in half during its most recent quarter.

Pier 1 earned less despite an increase in sales compared to the same quarter last year. CEO Alex W. Smith blamed that on an increase in promotions and the costs associated with online sales. Plus, fewer people are shopping at its stores.

"The paradigm for customer shopping behavior continues to change," Smith said.

He pointed to the jump in online sales, which now make up nearly 10% of overall sales, as a highlight. But that growth is cutting into the company's bottom line in the short-term, due to investments in marketing, staff and the opening of the company's second fulfillment center.

  Sears 'irrelevant' as losses deepen

Smith said he was hopeful that an increase in online sales can also help drive traffic at stores. About one-third of online orders are currently picked up at Pier 1 stores and about a quarter of online orders are placed at computers located in the stores.

Shares of Pier 1 Imports (PIR) are down 33% since the beginning of 2014.

Why Miller Energy Resources (MILL) Stock Is Up Today

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Miller Energy Resources (MILL) was gaining 15.7% to $6.33 Monday after SunTrust upgraded the stock to "buy" from "neutral."

The analyst firm raised its price target for Miller Energy to $10 from $8. SunTrust analyst Neal Dingmann sees Miller Energy's production growing by about 180% this year, and about 60% next year due to acquisitions and wells in Cook Inlet and North Slope.

Must read: Warren Buffett's 25 Favorite Stocks

STOCKS TO BUY: TheStreet Quant Ratings has identified a handful of stocks that can potentially TRIPLE in the next 12 months. Learn more. TheStreet Ratings team rates MILLER ENERGY RESOURCES INC as a Sell with a ratings score of D+. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation: "We rate MILLER ENERGY RESOURCES INC (MILL) a SELL. This is driven by several weaknesses, which we believe should have a greater impact than any strengths, and could make it more difficult for investors to achieve positive results compared to most of the stocks we cover. The company's weaknesses can be seen in multiple areas, such as its feeble growth in its earnings per share and disappointing return on equity." Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows: MILLER ENERGY RESOURCES INC's earnings per share declined by 7.1% in the most recent quarter compared to the same quarter a year ago. Earnings per share have declined over the last year. We anticipate that this should continue in the coming year. During the past fiscal year, MILLER ENERGY RESOURCES INC reported poor results of -$0.60 versus -$0.47 in the prior year. For the next year, the market is expecting a contraction of 1.7% in earnings (-$0.61 versus -$0.60). The company's current return on equity has slightly decreased from the same quarter one year prior. This implies a minor weakness in the organization. Compared to other companies in the Oil, Gas & Consumable Fuels industry and the overall market, MILLER ENERGY RESOURCES INC's return on equity significantly trails that of both the industry average and the S&P 500. MILL's debt-to-equity ratio is very low at 0.20 and is currently below that of the industry average, implying that there has been very successful management of debt levels. Despite the fact that MILL's debt-to-equity ratio is low, the quick ratio, which is currently 0.63, displays a potential problem in covering short-term cash needs. The gross profit margin for MILLER ENERGY RESOURCES INC is rather high; currently it is at 63.45%. It has increased significantly from the same period last year. Regardless of the strong results of the gross profit margin, the net profit margin of -18.65% is in-line with the industry average. Net operating cash flow has significantly increased by 2001.19% to $11.10 million when compared to the same quarter last year. In addition, MILLER ENERGY RESOURCES INC has also vastly surpassed the industry average cash flow growth rate of 17.57%. You can view the full analysis from the report here: MILL Ratings Report STOCKS TO BUY: TheStreet Quant Ratings has identified a handful of stocks that can potentially TRIPLE in the next 12 months. Learn more.