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Should Value Investors Buy These Transportation Stocks?

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Here at Zacks, we focus on our proven ranking system, which places an emphasis on earnings estimates and estimate revisions, to find winning stocks. But we also understand that investors develop their own strategies, so we are constantly looking at the latest trends in value, growth, and momentum to find strong companies for our readers.

Considering these trends, value investing is clearly one of the most preferred ways to find strong stocks in any type of market. 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 Matson (MATX - Free Report) . MATX is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy) and an A for Value. The stock is trading with P/E ratio of 7.90 right now. For comparison, its industry sports an average P/E of 13.87. MATX's Forward P/E has been as high as 18.44 and as low as 7.41, with a median of 10.45, all within the past year.

Another valuation metric that we should highlight is MATX's P/B ratio of 2.61. 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. MATX's current P/B looks attractive when compared to its industry's average P/B of 4.23. Over the past 12 months, MATX's P/B has been as high as 3.47 and as low as 2.31, with a median of 2.76.

Value investors also use the P/S ratio. The P/S ratio is is calculated as price divided by sales. Some people prefer this metric because sales are harder to manipulate on an income statement. This means it could be a truer performance indicator. MATX has a P/S ratio of 1.06. This compares to its industry's average P/S of 1.34.

Schneider National (SNDR - Free Report) may be another strong Transportation - Services stock to add to your shortlist. SNDR is a # 2 (Buy) stock with a Value grade of A.

Schneider National is trading at a forward earnings multiple of 11.61 at the moment, with a PEG ratio of 0.65. This compares to its industry's average P/E of 13.87 and average PEG ratio of 0.76.

Over the last 12 months, SNDR's P/E has been as high as 16.10, as low as 10.78, with a median of 12.70, and its PEG ratio has been as high as 1.73, as low as 0.60, with a median of 0.91.

Schneider National sports a P/B ratio of 2.02 as well; this compares to its industry's price-to-book ratio of 4.23. In the past 52 weeks, SNDR's P/B has been as high as 2.23, as low as 1.55, with a median of 1.94.

These are just a handful of the figures considered in Matson and Schneider National's great Value grade. Still, they help show that the stock is likely being undervalued at the moment. Add this to the strength of its earnings outlook, and we can clearly see that MATX and SNDR is an impressive value stock right now.


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