Investors looking for stocks in the Industrial Services sector might want to consider either Global Industrial (GIC) or W.W. Grainger (GWW). But which of these two stocks presents investors with the better value opportunity right now? Let's take a closer look.
The best way to find great value stocks is to pair a strong Zacks Rank with an impressive grade in the Value category of our Style Scores system. 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.
Global Industrial and W.W. Grainger are sporting Zacks Ranks of #1 (Strong Buy) and #4 (Sell), respectively, right now. Investors should feel comfortable knowing that GIC likely has seen a stronger improvement to its earnings outlook than GWW has recently. However, value investors will care about much more than just this.
Value investors are also interested in a number of tried-and-true valuation metrics that help show when a company is undervalued at its current share price levels.
Our Value category grades stocks based on a number of key metrics, including the tried-and-true P/E ratio, the P/S ratio, earnings yield, and cash flow per share, as well as a variety of other fundamentals that value investors frequently use.
GIC currently has a forward P/E ratio of 19.14, while GWW has a forward P/E of 25.04. We also note that GIC has a PEG ratio of 1.20. 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. GWW currently has a PEG ratio of 2.88.
Another notable valuation metric for GIC is its P/B ratio of 4.72. Investors use the P/B ratio to look at a stock's market value versus its book value, which is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. By comparison, GWW has a P/B of 11.65.
Based on these metrics and many more, GIC holds a Value grade of B, while GWW has a Value grade of C.
GIC sticks out from GWW in both our Zacks Rank and Style Scores models, so value investors will likely feel that GIC is the better option right now.
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Global Industrial Company (GIC): Free Stock Analysis Report W.W. Grainger, Inc. (GWW): Free Stock Analysis ReportThis article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
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