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The following are today's upgrades for Validea's Earnings Yield Investor model based on the published strategy of Joel Greenblatt. This value model looks for companies with high return on capital and earnings yields.

WILLDAN GROUP, INC. (WLDN) is a small-cap growth stock in the Business Services industry. The rating according to our strategy based on Joel Greenblatt changed from 0% to 100% based on the firm’s underlying fundamentals and the stock’s valuation. A score of 80% or above typically indicates that the strategy has some interest in the stock and a score above 90% typically indicates strong interest.

Company Description: Willdan Group, Inc. is a provider of professional, technical and consulting services to utilities, government agencies, and private industry. The Company's service offerings include electric grid solutions, energy efficiency and sustainability, engineering and planning, and municipal financial consulting. The Company operates through two segments: Energy, and Engineering and Consulting. The Energy segment provides specialized energy solutions to businesses, utilities, state agencies, municipalities, and non-profit organizations. Its Energy services include audits and surveys, program design, master planning, demand reduction, grid optimization, benchmarking analyses, design engineering, and more. The Engineering and Consulting segment provides civil engineering-related construction management, building and safety, city engineering office management, city planning, civil design, geotechnical, material testing, and other engineering consulting services to its clients.

The following table summarizes whether the stock meets each of this strategy's tests. Not all criteria in the below table receive equal weighting or are independent, but the table provides a brief overview of the strong and weak points of the security in the context of the strategy's criteria.

Detailed Analysis of WILLDAN GROUP, INC.

About Joel Greenblatt: In his 2005 bestseller The Little Book That Beats The Market, hedge fund manager Joel Greenblatt laid out a stunningly simple way to beat the market using two -- and only two -- fundamental variables. The "Magic Formula," as he called it, produced back-tested returns of 30.8 percent per year from 1988 through 2004, more than doubling the S&P 500's 12.4 percent return during that time. Greenblatt also produced exceptional returns as managing partner at Gotham Capital, a New York City-based hedge fund he founded. The firm averaged a remarkable 40 percent annualized return over more than two decades.

About Validea: Validea is aninvestment researchservice that follows the published strategies of investment legends. Validea offers both stock analysis and model portfolios based on gurus who have outperformed the market over the long-term, including Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham, Peter Lynch and Martin Zweig. For more information about Validea, click here

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.