RTO or TRI: Which Is the Better Value Stock Right Now?

Investors interested in Business - Services stocks are likely familiar with Rentokil Initial PLC (RTO) and Thomson Reuters (TRI). 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, both Rentokil Initial PLC and Thomson Reuters are holding a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy). The Zacks Rank favors stocks that have recently seen positive revisions to their earnings estimates, so investors should rest assured that both of these companies have improving earnings outlooks. But this is just one piece of the puzzle for value investors.

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.

RTO currently has a forward P/E ratio of 21.33, while TRI has a forward P/E of 35.01. We also note that RTO has a PEG ratio of 4.28. 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. TRI currently has a PEG ratio of 4.38.

Another notable valuation metric for RTO is its P/B ratio of 2.56. 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, TRI has a P/B of 5.15.

These are just a few of the metrics contributing to RTO's Value grade of B and TRI's Value grade of D.

Both RTO and TRI are impressive stocks with solid earnings outlooks, but based on these valuation figures, we feel that RTO is the superior value option right now.

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

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