Yahoo Finance ELV or AVTR: Which Is the Better Value Stock Right Now?
Investors with an interest in Medical Services stocks have likely encountered both Elevance Health (ELV) and Avantor, Inc. (AVTR). But which of these two stocks is more attractive to value investors? We'll need to take a closer look to find out.
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 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.
Elevance Health has a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), while Avantor, Inc. has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) right now. Investors should feel comfortable knowing that ELV likely has seen a stronger improvement to its earnings outlook than AVTR has recently. 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.
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.
ELV currently has a forward P/E ratio of 14.34, while AVTR has a forward P/E of 25.21. We also note that ELV has a PEG ratio of 1.18. 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. AVTR currently has a PEG ratio of 2.59.
Another notable valuation metric for ELV is its P/B ratio of 3.05. 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, AVTR has a P/B of 3.28.
Based on these metrics and many more, ELV holds a Value grade of A, while AVTR has a Value grade of C.
ELV stands above AVTR thanks to its solid earnings outlook, and based on these valuation figures, we also feel that ELV is the superior value option right now.
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Elevance Health, Inc. (ELV) : Free Stock Analysis Report
Avantor, Inc. (AVTR) : Free Stock Analysis Report
