Investors looking for stocks in the Utility - Electric Power sector might want to consider either Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (BIP Quick QuoteBIP - Free Report) or Southern Co. (SO Quick QuoteSO - Free Report) . 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.

Everyone has their own methods for finding great value opportunities, but our model includes pairing an impressive grade in the Value category of our Style Scores system with a strong Zacks Rank. 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.

Brookfield Infrastructure Partners has a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), while Southern Co. has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) right now. The Zacks Rank favors stocks that have recently seen positive revisions to their earnings estimates, so investors should rest assured that BIP has an improving earnings outlook. But this is just one factor that value investors are interested in.

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.

BIP currently has a forward P/E ratio of 11.93, while SO has a forward P/E of 17.84. We also note that BIP has a PEG ratio of 1.24. This metric is used similarly to the famous P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also takes into account the stock's expected earnings growth rate. SO currently has a PEG ratio of 3.96.

Another notable valuation metric for BIP is its P/B ratio of 0.94. 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, SO has a P/B of 1.83.

These are just a few of the metrics contributing to BIP's Value grade of B and SO's Value grade of C.

BIP has seen stronger estimate revision activity and sports more attractive valuation metrics than SO, so it seems like value investors will conclude that BIP is the superior option right now.