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Should Value Investors Buy ABM Industries (ABM) Stock?

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While the proven Zacks Rank places an emphasis on earnings estimates and estimate revisions to find strong stocks, we also know that investors tend to develop their own individual strategies. With this in mind, we are always looking at value, growth, and momentum trends to discover great companies.

Of these, value investing is easily one of the most popular ways to find great stocks in any market environment. Value investors rely on traditional forms of analysis on key valuation metrics to find stocks that they believe are undervalued, leaving room for profits.

In addition to the Zacks Rank, investors looking for stocks with specific traits can utilize our Style Scores system. Of course, value investors will be most interested in the system's "Value" category. Stocks with "A" grades for Value and high Zacks Ranks are among the best value stocks available at any given moment.

One company to watch right now is ABM Industries (ABM - Free Report) . ABM is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy) and an A for Value. The stock is trading with P/E ratio of 11.89 right now. For comparison, its industry sports an average P/E of 30.53. Over the last 12 months, ABM's Forward P/E has been as high as 13.48 and as low as 10.16, with a median of 12.01.

Value investors also use the P/S ratio. The P/S ratio is is calculated as price divided by sales. This is a prefered metric because revenue can't really be manipulated, so sales are often a truer performance indicator. ABM has a P/S ratio of 0.32. This compares to its industry's average P/S of 0.54.

Finally, investors will want to recognize that ABM has a P/CF ratio of 9.56. This metric takes into account a company's operating cash flow and can be used to find stocks that are undervalued based on their solid cash outlook. This company's current P/CF looks solid when compared to its industry's average P/CF of 36.78. Over the past 52 weeks, ABM's P/CF has been as high as 10.75 and as low as 8.05, with a median of 9.18.

Value investors will likely look at more than just these metrics, but the above data helps show that ABM Industries is likely undervalued currently. And when considering the strength of its earnings outlook, ABM sticks out at as one of the market's strongest value stocks.


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