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Zacks.com featured highlights include: Academy Sports and Outdoors, M/I Homes, MetLife, ArcelorMittal and Nu Skin Enterprises

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – October 5, 2021 – Stocks in this week’s article are Academy Sports and Outdoors, Inc. (ASO - Free Report) , M/I Homes, Inc. (MHO - Free Report) , MetLife, Inc. (MET - Free Report) , ArcelorMittal (MT - Free Report) and Nu Skin Enterprises, Inc. (NUS - Free Report) .

Pick These 5 Bargain Stocks with Alluring EV-to-EBITDA Ratios

Price-to-earnings (P/E), owing to its apparent simplicity, is the most commonly used metric in the value-investing world. The ratio enjoys greater popularity among valuation metrics in the investment toolkit and is preferred while uncovering stocks trading at attractive prices. But even this universally used valuation multiple is not without its limitations.

Is EV-to-EBITDA a Better Substitute to P/E?

While P/E is by far the most popular valuation metric, the more complicated EV-to-EBITDA does a better job in working out the fair market value of a firm. Often viewed as a better substitute to P/E, this ratio offers a clearer picture of a company’s valuation and its earnings potential.

EV-to-EBITDA is the enterprise value (EV) of a stock divided by its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA). EV is the sum of a company’s market capitalization, its debt and preferred stock minus cash and cash equivalents. In essence, it is the entire value of a company.

EBITDA, the other constituent of the ratio, gives a clearer picture of a company’s profitability as it removes the impact of non-cash expenses like depreciation and amortization that dampen net earnings. It is also often used as a proxy for cash flows.

Just like P/E, the lower the EV-to-EBITDA ratio, the more appealing it is. A low EV-to-EBITDA ratio could signal that a stock is potentially undervalued.  

However, unlike P/E ratio, EV-to-EBITDA takes into account the debt on a company’s balance sheet. Given this reason, EV-to-EBITDA is usually used to value possible acquisition targets. Stocks with a low EV-to-EBITDA multiple could be seen as takeover candidates.

Another key downside of P/E is that it can’t be used to value a loss-making entity. Moreover, a company’s earnings are also subject to accounting estimates and management manipulation. On the other hand, EV-to-EBITDA is difficult to manipulate and can also be used to value companies incurring losses but are EBITDA-positive.

EV-to-EBITDA is also a useful yardstick in measuring the value of firms that are highly leveraged and have a high degree of depreciation. Moreover, it can be used to compare companies with different levels of debt.

But EV-to-EBITDA has its limitations too. The ratio varies across industries (a high-growth industry typically has a higher multiple and vice versa) and is usually not appropriate while comparing stocks in different industries given their diverse capital requirements.

As such, a strategy solely based on EV-to-EBITDA might not yield the desired results.  But you can club it with the other major ratios in your stock investing toolbox such as price-to-book (P/B), P/E and price-to-sales (P/S) to screen bargain stocks.

For the rest of this Screen of the Week article please visit Zacks.com at: https://www.zacks.com/stock/news/1804382/pick-these-5-bargain-stocks-with-alluring-ev-to-ebitda-ratios

Disclosure: Officers, directors and/or employees of Zacks Investment Research may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material. An affiliated investment advisory firm may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material.

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Strong Stocks that Should Be in the News

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