Seagate Technology (STX) has returned 539% over five years, Occidental Petroleum (OXY) is sitting on a 65.2% gross margin with Berkshire Hathaway still at its back, and Construction Partners (ROAD) is compounding earnings per share at 49.6% annually while most infrastructure names quietly do their thing off the front page. Friday evening brought a fresh look at six stocks across multiple screens, all flagged for sustained fundamental outperformance — and the macro setup threading through all of them is worth sitting with before Monday's open.
Six Names, One Common Thread: Earnings Growth That Actually Shows Up in the Numbers
The two screener reports published Friday night aren't noise. They're built around a single, durable thesis: companies that expand operating margins and grow revenue and convert that growth into free cash flow tend to win over time. That's not a controversial idea, but finding names that do all three consistently is harder than it sounds. The Friday screens surfaced six that clear that bar right now.
On the data storage side, Seagate (STX) is the standout. Annual revenue growth of 24.7% over the past two years suggests it's taking share in this cycle, and the sales outlook for the next 12 months calls for 29.8% growth — an acceleration from that already strong trend. Operating margin expanded 8 percentage points over five years. At $595.66 per share and 33.9x forward P/E, the valuation is not cheap — but the momentum behind those fundamentals is real.
Over in industrials, Crane (CR) is the name that deserves more attention than it's getting. Wall Street is forecasting revenue growth of 24.3% for the next 12 months — an acceleration above its two-year trend — while EPS has already been compounding at 18.9% annually and returns on capital are climbing. The stock trades at $184.85 and 26.9x forward P/E. That's a reasonable multiple for a business genuinely improving its capital efficiency. Valmont Industries (VMI) rounds out the industrial side — EPS compounding at 57.6% annually over two years and free cash flow margin up 10.2 percentage points in five. At $497.53 and 2.1x forward price-to-sales, it's one of the more modestly valued names on either list.
What the Yield Curve Is Telling These Business Models Right Now
No proprietary signal flags were triggered on these specific tickers in this cycle's data block, so the honest read here is the macro overlay. And that overlay is actually constructive. The Fed funds effective rate sits at as of April 23. The 10-year Treasury yield is at . The 2-year is at . The 10Y-2Y spread is — a curve that's back to positive slope and holding there.
That matters for this particular basket of names in a specific way. Infrastructure and industrial businesses like Construction Partners (ROAD) and Valmont (VMI) often carry project financing risk that gets priced against long-duration rates. A steepening curve — or at minimum a stable positive one — is a tailwind for those business models versus the inverted environment that squeezed capital allocation decisions for much of the prior two years. Meanwhile, Occidental (OXY) benefits from a different dynamic: its $22.08 billion revenue base gives it supplier pricing leverage that smaller energy names simply don't have, and strong free cash flow generation looks more attractive to positioning when rates are stabilizing rather than spiking.
Hims & Hers Health (HIMS) — flagged for steady new customer flow and a five-year return of 136% — is the outlier in this group in terms of rate sensitivity. Telehealth platform multiples compress fast when risk appetite shrinks. The current rate setup doesn't threaten it, but it doesn't gift it a tailwind either. That name trades on execution and subscriber momentum, not macro.
When the 2021 Data Storage Bubble Burned Holders — and Why This Cycle Looks Different
The last time hard drive and storage names ran this hard, traders paid for it. In 2021 and into early 2022, multiple storage and semiconductor-adjacent names traded at stretched multiples on AI hype that hadn't yet converted to actual revenue. The difference this cycle — and it's a meaningful one — is that Seagate's fundamentals are actually arriving. Revenue is up 24.7% annually over two years. That's not a projection. That's a delivered number in the rearview mirror, with guidance for an acceleration. Hype-driven rallies crack fast when earnings don't follow. Earnings-driven rallies tend to consolidate and continue.
The 33.9x forward P/E on Seagate is still a number to respect — it leaves limited margin of safety if the acceleration doesn't land. But the setup now is categorically different from the 2021 version: the earnings are real, the margin expansion is documented, and the data center demand driving it has a structural bid underneath. That doesn't guarantee a clean run, but it changes the risk profile considerably.
The Lines Worth Drawing Before Monday's Open
Watch the 10-year yield. At 4.34% Seagate at 33.9x and Construction Partners at 40.5x are the two most exposed to that scenario. If the yield curve holds or steepens further from here, the infrastructure and industrial names — Valmont, Crane, ROAD — likely stay bid.
The OXY trade is its own conversation. Berkshire's backing is a real signal, the gross margin at 65.2% is genuinely strong for an energy producer, and a five-year return of 132% tells you the asset base has been well managed. But oil prices, not earnings multiples, will determine whether OXY moves on Monday. Notable. The question to carry into next week is whether the data center storage thesis — which has been Seagate's engine — still has institutional sponsorship, or whether the rotation toward tangible industrial infrastructure is beginning to pull capital away from it.