In the Sweet Spot · · Lazard (LAZ) · Financials
Why Lazard stands out today
Lazard's PAR sits at the top of our sweet spot, with strong underlying quality offset by an earnings-stability concern worth watching.
Lazard (LAZ) was Manifest Investing's In the Sweet Spot daily stock pick for July 31, 2026. At the time of the pick, Lazard carried a quality percentile of 93 and a projected annual return (PAR) of 19.3% against a MIPAR of 9.4%, placing it inside the sweet spot of 14.4% to 19.4%.
Key metrics at the time of the pick
- Quality percentile
- 93
- Projected annual return (PAR)
- 19.3%
- MIPAR (median PAR of coverage)
- 9.4%
- PROVE
- 22.7%
- Core score (of 300)
- 207
- Financial strength (of 100)
- 82
- EPS stability (of 100)
- 31.4
- Sales growth forecast
- 12.0%
- P/E ratio
- 9.3
- Price at pick
- $41.95
- 52-week low
- $38.67
- 52-week high
- $58.75
- Above 52-week low
- 8.5%
- Below 52-week high
- 28.6%
- Dividend yield
- 4.9%
- Projected yield
- 4.5%
- In the sweet spot
- Yes
- Triple play
- No
Why Lazard (LAZ) stands out today
Lazard closed at $41.95. At that price, the combination of an elevated PAR and solid underlying fundamentals is exactly the kind of setup our sweet spot is designed to surface.
The numbers
We follow one PAR (Projected Annual Return, our five-year annualized return estimate combining price appreciation and dividends) for every company we track, and for Lazard that figure is hand-curated in our analyst file. Today it reads 19.3%, right at the top edge of our sweet spot, the band running from MIPAR (currently 9.4%, the median PAR across everything we follow) plus 5 points to plus 10 points, or 14.4% to 19.4%. Lazard’s quality rank, a percentile score measuring financial strength, earnings stability, and relative sales growth and profitability against the rest of our database, stands at 93.3, in the top decile of names we cover.
The stock trades at a P/E of 9.3, with a current dividend yield of 4.87% (projected yield 4.5% looking ahead) and a growth forecast of 12.0%. Financial strength comes in at 82 out of 100, comfortably in solid territory. EPS stability, our 0-100 measure of how smooth annual earnings growth has been, sits at just 31.4, a reminder that Lazard’s advisory-driven revenue can swing quarter to quarter with deal timing, and that’s worth weighing against the otherwise attractive headline numbers. Summing quality, financial strength, and EPS stability gives a core score of 207 (out of a possible 300); that falls short of the 225 threshold we associate with a “core holding” candidate, largely because of that earnings variability.
At $41.95, the stock sits about 8.5% above its 52-week low of $38.67 and roughly 29% below its 52-week high of $58.75.
Why today
The low EPS stability score points to a real source of earnings variability that’s worth carrying forward as a consideration for anyone studying this name further.
This is educational research, not a recommendation.
About In the Sweet Spot
Manifest Investing's daily stock pick: one high-quality company whose projected annual return (PAR) sits in the sweet spot above the market median (MIPAR). Each pick pairs Manifest Investing's quality percentile with its projected annual return (PAR); the sweet spot runs from MIPAR + 5 to MIPAR + 10 percentage points. Browse every pick in the archive.
In the Sweet Spot is educational and is not investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Figures reflect Manifest Investing's methodology as of the pick date.