It doesn't matter your age or experience: taking full advantage of the stock market and investing with confidence are common goals for all investors. Luckily, Zacks Premium offers several different ways to do both.

Featuring daily updates of the Zacks Rank and Zacks Industry Rank, full access to the Zacks #1 Rank List, Equity Research reports, and Premium stock screens, the research service can help you become a smarter, more self-assured investor.

Zacks Premium also includes the Zacks Style Scores.

What are the Zacks Style Scores?

The Zacks Style Scores, developed alongside the Zacks Rank, are complementary indicators that rate stocks based on three widely-followed investing methodologies; they also help investors pick stocks with the best chances of beating the market over the next 30 days.

Each stock is assigned a rating of A, B, C, D, or F based on their value, growth, and momentum characteristics. Just like in school, an A is better than a B, a B is better than a C, and so on -- that means the better the score, the better chance the stock will outperform.

The Style Scores are broken down into four categories:

Value Score

Value investors love finding good stocks at good prices, especially before the broader market catches on to a stock's true value. Utilizing ratios like P/E, PEG, Price/Sales, Price/Cash Flow, and many other multiples, the Value Style Score identifies the most attractive and most discounted stocks.

Growth Score

Growth investors are more concerned with a stock's future prospects, and the overall financial health and strength of a company. Thus, the Growth Style Score analyzes characteristics like projected and historic earnings, sales, and cash flow to find stocks that will see sustainable growth over time.

Momentum Score

Momentum trading is all about taking advantage of upward or downward trends in a stock's price or earnings outlook, and these investors live by the saying "the trend is your friend." The Momentum Style Score can pinpoint good times to build a position in a stock, using factors like one-week price change and the monthly percentage change in earnings estimates.

VGM Score

What if you like to use all three types of investing? The VGM Score is a combination of all Style Scores, making it one of the most comprehensive indicators to use with the Zacks Rank. It rates each stock on their combined weighted styles, which helps narrow down the companies with the most attractive value, best growth forecast, and most promising momentum.

How Style Scores Work with the Zacks Rank

The Zacks Rank, which is a proprietary stock-rating model, employs earnings estimate revisions, or changes to a company's earnings expectations, to make building a winning portfolio easier.

It's highly successful, with #1 (Strong Buy) stocks producing an unmatched +25.41% average annual return since 1988. That's more than double the S&P 500. But because of the large number of stocks we rate, there are over 200 companies with a Strong Buy rank, plus another 600 with a #2 (Buy) rank, on any given day.

But it can feel overwhelming to pick the right stocks for you and your investing goals with over 800 top-rated stocks to choose from.

That's where the Style Scores come in.

To have the best chance of big returns, you'll want to always consider stocks with a Zacks Rank #1 or #2 that also have Style Scores of A or B, which will give you the highest probability of success. If you're looking at stocks with a #3 (Hold) rank, it's important they have Scores of A or B as well to ensure as much upside potential as possible.

The direction of a stock's earnings estimate revisions should always be a key factor when choosing which stocks to buy, since the Scores were created to work together with the Zacks Rank.

A stock with a #4 (Sell) or #5 (Strong Sell) rating, for instance, even one with Scores of A and B, will still have a declining earnings forecast, and a greater chance its share price will fall too.

Thus, the more stocks you own with a #1 or #2 Rank and Scores of A or B, the better.

Stock to Watch: Fiserv (FI Quick QuoteFI - Free Report)

Founded in 1984, Fiserv Inc. is headquartered in Brookfield, WI. The company provides financial services technology solutions to over 12,000 clients worldwide in the banking, insurance, healthcare and investment industries. Fiserv serves banks, credit unions, leasing and finance companies, investment management firms, billers, retailers, and merchants. The company has grown its business through developing highly specialized products and services and enhancing them, increasing capabilities through innovation, expanding client base, and acquiring complementary businesses. Core focus areas of Fiserv’s business are portfolio management, client relationship value enhancement, operational effectiveness, capital discipline and innovation. Revenues increased 7.6% year over year to $19.09 billion in 2023. Processing & services revenues, primarily generated from account-and-transaction based fees under contracts (three to five-year terms), represented 82% of revenues in 2023. The company has four reportable segments – Merchant Acceptance (Acceptance) segment, the Financial Technology (Fintech)segment and the Payments and Network (Payments) segment.

FI is a #3 (Hold) on the Zacks Rank, with a VGM Score of B.

Additionally, the company could be a top pick for growth investors. FI has a Growth Style Score of B, forecasting year-over-year earnings growth of 16.6% for the current fiscal year.

For fiscal 2024, eight analysts revised their earnings estimate upwards in the last 60 days, and the Zacks Consensus Estimate has increased $0.03 to $8.77 per share. FI boasts an average earnings surprise of 3.1%.

With a solid Zacks Rank and top-tier Growth and VGM Style Scores, FI should be on investors' short list.