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Is National General Holdings (NGHC) a Great Value Stock Right Now?

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Here at Zacks, our focus is on the proven Zacks Rank system, which emphasizes earnings estimates and estimate revisions to find great stocks. Nevertheless, we are always paying attention to the latest value, growth, and momentum trends to underscore strong picks.

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.

On top of the Zacks Rank, investors can also look at our innovative Style Scores system to find stocks with specific traits. For example, value investors will want to focus on the "Value" category. Stocks with high Zacks Ranks and "A" grades for Value will be some of the highest-quality value stocks on the market today.

One company value investors might notice is National General Holdings . NGHC is currently holding a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy) and a Value grade of A. The stock is trading with a P/E ratio of 10.57, which compares to its industry's average of 22.85. Over the last 12 months, NGHC's Forward P/E has been as high as 10.59 and as low as 4.41, with a median of 7.37.

Value investors also love the P/S ratio, which is calculated by simply dividing a stock's price with the company's sales. This is a prefered metric because revenue can't really be manipulated, so sales are often a truer performance indicator. NGHC has a P/S ratio of 0.73. This compares to its industry's average P/S of 0.8.

These figures are just a handful of the metrics value investors tend to look at, but they help show that National General Holdings is likely being undervalued right now. Considering this, as well as the strength of its earnings outlook, NGHC feels like a great value stock at the moment.

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