EDU or UTI: Which Is the Better Value Stock Right Now?

Investors looking for stocks in the Schools sector might want to consider either New Oriental Education (EDU) or Universal Technical Institute (UTI). But which of these two stocks presents investors with the better value opportunity right now? Let's take a closer look.

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 Zacks Rank favors stocks with strong earnings estimate revision trends, and our Style Scores highlight companies with specific traits.

New Oriental Education has a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy), while Universal Technical Institute has a Zacks Rank of #5 (Strong Sell) right now. The Zacks Rank favors stocks that have recently seen positive revisions to their earnings estimates, so investors should rest assured that EDU has an improving earnings outlook. But this is only part of the picture 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.

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.

EDU currently has a forward P/E ratio of 16.61, while UTI has a forward P/E of 37.77. We also note that EDU has a PEG ratio of 0.89. This figure is similar to the commonly-used P/E ratio, with the PEG ratio also factoring in a company's expected earnings growth rate. UTI currently has a PEG ratio of 2.52.

Another notable valuation metric for EDU is its P/B ratio of 2.33. The P/B ratio is used to compare a stock's market value with its book value, which is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. For comparison, UTI has a P/B of 4.81.

These are just a few of the metrics contributing to EDU's Value grade of A and UTI's Value grade of D.

EDU stands above UTI thanks to its solid earnings outlook, and based on these valuation figures, we also feel that EDU 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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