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ARKAY vs. ALB: Which Stock Is the Better Value Option?

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Investors interested in Chemical - Diversified stocks are likely familiar with Arkema SA (ARKAY - Free Report) and Albemarle (ALB - Free Report) . But which of these two stocks is more attractive to value investors? We'll need to take a closer look to find out.

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 Zacks Rank favors stocks with strong earnings estimate revision trends, and our Style Scores highlight companies with specific traits.

Arkema SA has a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), while Albemarle has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) right now. Investors should feel comfortable knowing that ARKAY likely has seen a stronger improvement to its earnings outlook than ALB has recently. But this is just one factor that value investors are interested in.

Value investors analyze a variety of traditional, tried-and-true metrics to help find companies that they believe are undervalued at their current share price levels.

The Value category of the Style Scores system identifies undervalued companies by looking at a number of key metrics. These include the long-favored P/E ratio, P/S ratio, earnings yield, cash flow per share, and a variety of other fundamentals that help us determine a company's fair value.

ARKAY currently has a forward P/E ratio of 16.30, while ALB has a forward P/E of 42.85. We also note that ARKAY has a PEG ratio of 0.75. This popular figure is similar to the widely-used P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also considers a company's expected EPS growth rate. ALB currently has a PEG ratio of 3.64.

Another notable valuation metric for ARKAY is its P/B ratio of 1.53. 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, ALB has a P/B of 3.54.

These are just a few of the metrics contributing to ARKAY's Value grade of A and ALB's Value grade of D.

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


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