Investors interested in Medical Services stocks are likely familiar with CVS Health (CVS) and Danaher (DHR). But which of these two stocks is more attractive to value investors? We'll need to take a closer look to find out.
There are plenty of strategies for discovering value stocks, but we have found that pairing a strong Zacks Rank with an impressive grade in the Value category of our Style Scores system produces the best returns. The proven Zacks Rank puts an emphasis on earnings estimates and estimate revisions, while our Style Scores work to identify stocks with specific traits.
Right now, CVS Health is sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), while Danaher has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold). This system places an emphasis on companies that have seen positive earnings estimate revisions, so investors should feel comfortable knowing that CVS is likely seeing its earnings outlook improve to a greater extent. But this is just one factor that value investors are interested in.
Value investors also try to analyze a wide range of traditional figures and metrics to help determine whether a company is undervalued at its 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.
CVS currently has a forward P/E ratio of 10.11, while DHR has a forward P/E of 25.57. We also note that CVS has a PEG ratio of 0.88. 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. DHR currently has a PEG ratio of 2.76.
Another notable valuation metric for CVS is its P/B ratio of 1.01. The P/B ratio pits a stock's market value against its book value, which is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. For comparison, DHR has a P/B of 2.71.
Based on these metrics and many more, CVS holds a Value grade of A, while DHR has a Value grade of C.
CVS sticks out from DHR in both our Zacks Rank and Style Scores models, so value investors will likely feel that CVS is the better option right now.
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CVS Health Corporation (CVS): Free Stock Analysis Report Danaher Corporation (DHR): Free Stock Analysis ReportThis article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
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