Yahoo Finance CRAI or IT: Which Is the Better Value Stock Right Now?
Investors with an interest in Consulting Services stocks have likely encountered both CRA International (CRAI) and Gartner (IT). 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.
CRA International has a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), while Gartner has a Zacks Rank of #4 (Sell) right now. This means that CRAI's earnings estimate revision activity has been more impressive, so investors should feel comfortable with its improving analyst outlook. But this is only part of the picture for value investors.
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.
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.
CRAI currently has a forward P/E ratio of 26.05, while IT has a forward P/E of 41.96. We also note that CRAI has a PEG ratio of 1.63. 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. IT currently has a PEG ratio of 4.35.
Another notable valuation metric for CRAI is its P/B ratio of 4.89. The P/B is a method of comparing a stock's market value to its book value, which is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. By comparison, IT has a P/B of 54.86.
These are just a few of the metrics contributing to CRAI's Value grade of A and IT's Value grade of D.
CRAI has seen stronger estimate revision activity and sports more attractive valuation metrics than IT, so it seems like value investors will conclude that CRAI is the superior option right now.
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Charles River Associates (CRAI) : Free Stock Analysis Report
Gartner, Inc. (IT) : Free Stock Analysis Report
