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FL vs. JWN: Which Stock Should Value Investors Buy Now?

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Investors with an interest in Retail - Apparel and Shoes stocks have likely encountered both Foot Locker (FL - Free Report) and Nordstrom (JWN - 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.

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 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.

Foot Locker has a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy), while Nordstrom 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 FL is likely seeing its earnings outlook improve to a greater extent. However, value investors will care about much more than just this.

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.

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.

FL currently has a forward P/E ratio of 9.90, while JWN has a forward P/E of 27.38. We also note that FL has a PEG ratio of 2.48. 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. JWN currently has a PEG ratio of 4.56.

Another notable valuation metric for FL is its P/B ratio of 1.97. 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, JWN has a P/B of 31.30.

Based on these metrics and many more, FL holds a Value grade of A, while JWN has a Value grade of D.

FL sticks out from JWN in both our Zacks Rank and Style Scores models, so value investors will likely feel that FL is the better option right now.


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Nordstrom, Inc. (JWN) - free report >>

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