ALL Or WRB: Which Is The Better Value Stock Right Now?
Zacks Investment Research | Jun 17, 2018 09:45PM ET
Investors looking for stocks in the Insurance - Property and Casualty sector might want to consider either Allstate (ALL) or W.R. Berkley (WRB). But which of these two stocks is more attractive to value investors? We'll need to take a closer look to find out.
Everyone has their own methods for finding great value opportunities, but our model includes pairing an impressive grade in the Value category of our Style Scores system with a strong Zacks Rank. The Zacks Rank is a proven strategy that targets companies with positive earnings estimate revision trends, while our Style Scores work to grade companies based on specific traits.
Currently, Allstate has a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), while W.R. Berkley has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold). This means that ALL's earnings estimate revision activity has been more impressive, so investors should feel comfortable with its improving analyst outlook. But this is just one factor that value investors are interested in.
Value investors also tend to look at a number of traditional, tried-and-true figures to help them find stocks that they believe are undervalued at their current share price levels.
Our Value category highlights undervalued companies by looking at a variety of key metrics, including the popular P/E ratio, as well as the P/S ratio, earnings yield, cash flow per share, and a variety of other fundamentals that have been used by value investors for years.
ALL currently has a forward P/E ratio of 10.58, while WRB has a forward P/E of 20.75. We also note that ALL has a PEG ratio of 1.27. This popular figure is similar to the widely-used P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also considers a company's expected EPS growth rate. WRB currently has a PEG ratio of 2.31.
Another notable valuation metric for ALL is its P/B ratio of 1.57. The P/B is a method of comparing a stock's market value to its book value, which is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. By comparison, WRB has a P/B of 1.73.
These metrics, and several others, help ALL earn a Value grade of A, while WRB has been given a Value grade of C.
ALL sticks out from WRB in both our Zacks Rank and Style Scores models, so value investors will likely feel that ALL is the better option right now.
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