In the Sweet Spot · · Lennox (LII) · Industrials
Lennox: quality holding near its 52-week low, still inside the sweet spot
Lennox International pairs a 91.2 quality percentile with a projected annual return of 17.6% while trading just 3.9% above its 52-week low, a combination worth studying today.
Lennox (LII) was Manifest Investing's In the Sweet Spot daily stock pick for September 4, 2026. At the time of the pick, Lennox carried a quality percentile of 91 and a projected annual return (PAR) of 17.6% against a MIPAR of 8.8%, placing it inside the sweet spot of 13.8% to 18.8%.
Key metrics at the time of the pick
- Quality percentile
- 91
- Projected annual return (PAR)
- 17.6%
- MIPAR (median PAR of coverage)
- 8.8%
- PROVE
- 8.8%
- Core score (of 300)
- 264
- Financial strength (of 100)
- 94
- EPS stability (of 100)
- 78.9
- Sales growth forecast
- 6.0%
- P/E ratio
- 21.3
- Price at pick
- $386.08
- 52-week low
- $371.65
- 52-week high
- $587.27
- Above 52-week low
- 3.9%
- Below 52-week high
- 34.3%
- Dividend yield
- 1.3%
- Projected yield
- 0.8%
- In the sweet spot
- Yes
- Triple play
- Yes
Lennox International (NYSE: LII) is one of the stronger combinations we track right now: a quality percentile of 91.2 (top decile of all covered stocks) paired with a projected annual return (PAR) of 17.6%. With MIPAR, the median projected return across our coverage universe, at 8.8%, Lennox’s PAR sits inside the “sweet spot,” the band we define as roughly 5 to 10 percentage points above MIPAR, meant to flag high projected return without drifting into the most speculative names.
What makes today interesting is where the price sits relative to that return profile. Lennox trades at $386.08, just 3.9% above its 52-week low of $371.65 and 34.3% below its 52-week high of $587.27. PAR moves inversely to price, so a stock sitting this close to its low, with fundamentals intact, is exactly the setup where an elevated PAR shows up.
Lennox also carries our Triple Play flag today: George Nicholson’s concept of a depressed price (read here as an elevated PAR) combined with potential for both P/E expansion and margin enhancement, hand-flagged in the analyst file rather than derived from a formula. It’s a relatively rare combination in our coverage and one worth studying in more depth.
The quality picture is well-supported. Financial strength stands at 93.7 out of 100, well into “solid” territory, and EPS stability (a measure of how consistent the company’s earnings growth has been) reads 78.9 out of 100, in the “moderate-to-predictable” range. Sum quality, financial strength, and EPS stability and you get a core score of 264 out of a possible 300, comfortably above the 225 threshold we associate with a potential core holding. The growth forecast underlying the PAR projection is 6.0% annually, with a current dividend yield of 1.28% (projected yield 0.8% looking ahead).
Separately, the company announced the opening of a new commercial HVAC training center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, aimed at addressing the industry’s technician shortage, per a Lennox press release carried by PR Newswire. It’s a modest operational data point, but it speaks to ongoing investment in service capacity rather than retrenchment.
None of this is a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold. It’s a data-grounded look at why Lennox stands out in our coverage today: high quality, an elevated PAR from a price near its 52-week low, and a Triple Play flag that’s uncommon enough to merit closer study.
Sources
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.