ALL or WRB: Which Is the Better Value Stock Right Now?

Investors interested in stocks from the Insurance - Property and Casualty sector have probably already heard of Allstate (ALL) and W.R. Berkley (WRB). 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.

We have found that the best way to discover great value opportunities is to pair a strong Zacks Rank with a great 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.

Allstate has a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy), while W.R. Berkley has a Zacks Rank of #4 (Sell) right now. The Zacks Rank favors stocks that have recently seen positive revisions to their earnings estimates, so investors should rest assured that ALL has an improving earnings outlook. But this is only part of the picture for value investors.

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.

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.

ALL currently has a forward P/E ratio of 8.40, while WRB has a forward P/E of 16.07. We also note that ALL has a PEG ratio of 0.44. 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. WRB currently has a PEG ratio of 3.07.

Another notable valuation metric for ALL is its P/B ratio of 1.93. 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, WRB has a P/B of 2.84.

These metrics, and several others, help ALL earn a Value grade of A, while WRB has been given a Value grade of C.

ALL is currently sporting an improving earnings outlook, which makes it stick out in our Zacks Rank model. And, based on the above valuation metrics, we feel that ALL is likely the superior value option right now.

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

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