ITRI or TER: Which Is the Better Value Stock Right Now?

ITRI TER

Investors interested in Electronics - Testing Equipment stocks are likely familiar with Itron (ITRI - Free Report) and Teradyne (TER - Free Report) . 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 proven Zacks Rank puts an emphasis on earnings estimates and estimate revisions, while our Style Scores work to identify stocks with specific traits.

Itron has a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), while Teradyne has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) right now. This system places an emphasis on companies that have seen positive earnings estimate revisions, so investors should feel comfortable knowing that ITRI is likely seeing its earnings outlook improve to a greater extent. But this is just one piece of the puzzle for value investors.

Value investors also try to analyze a wide range of traditional figures and metrics to help determine whether a company is undervalued at its current share price levels.

The Style Score Value grade factors in a variety of key fundamental metrics, including the popular P/E ratio, P/S ratio, earnings yield, cash flow per share, and a number of other key stats that are commonly used by value investors.

ITRI currently has a forward P/E ratio of 26.61, while TER has a forward P/E of 38.78. We also note that ITRI has a PEG ratio of 1.16. This popular metric is similar to the widely-known P/E ratio, with the difference being that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company's expected earnings growth rate. TER currently has a PEG ratio of 5.05.

Another notable valuation metric for ITRI is its P/B ratio of 2.77. The P/B ratio pits a stock's market value against its book value, which is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. For comparison, TER has a P/B of 6.94.

Based on these metrics and many more, ITRI holds a Value grade of A, while TER has a Value grade of C.

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

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