GO vs. CL: Which Stock Is the Better Value Option?

Investors with an interest in Consumer Products - Staples stocks have likely encountered both Grocery Outlet Holding Corp. (GO) and Colgate-Palmolive (CL). But which of these two stocks offers value investors a better bang for their buck right now? We'll need to take a closer look.

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 proven Zacks Rank emphasizes companies with positive estimate revision trends, and our Style Scores highlight stocks with specific traits.

Currently, Grocery Outlet Holding Corp. has a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), while Colgate-Palmolive 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 GO is likely seeing its earnings outlook improve to a greater extent. However, value investors will care about much more than just this.

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.

The Style Score Value grade factors in a variety of key fundamental metrics, including the popular P/E ratio, P/S ratio, earnings yield, cash flow per share, and a number of other key stats that are commonly used by value investors.

GO currently has a forward P/E ratio of 20.34, while CL has a forward P/E of 21.64. We also note that GO has a PEG ratio of 2.81. 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. CL currently has a PEG ratio of 4.14.

Another notable valuation metric for GO is its P/B ratio of 1.31. 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, CL has a P/B of 61.15.

These metrics, and several others, help GO earn a Value grade of B, while CL has been given a Value grade of D.

GO has seen stronger estimate revision activity and sports more attractive valuation metrics than CL, so it seems like value investors will conclude that GO is the superior option right now.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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