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PPC or HRL: Which Is the Better Value Stock Right Now?

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Investors with an interest in Food - Meat Products stocks have likely encountered both Pilgrim's Pride (PPC - Free Report) and Hormel Foods (HRL - 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.

We have found that the best way to discover great value opportunities is to pair a strong Zacks Rank with a great grade in the Value category of our Style Scores system. The proven Zacks Rank puts an emphasis on earnings estimates and estimate revisions, while our Style Scores work to identify stocks with specific traits.

Pilgrim's Pride has a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy), while Hormel Foods has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) right now. Investors should feel comfortable knowing that PPC likely has seen a stronger improvement to its earnings outlook than HRL has recently. But this is just one piece of the puzzle for value investors.

Value investors also tend to look at a number of traditional, tried-and-true figures to help them find stocks 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.

PPC currently has a forward P/E ratio of 7.89, while HRL has a forward P/E of 23.97. We also note that PPC has a PEG ratio of 0.53. This figure is similar to the commonly-used P/E ratio, with the PEG ratio also factoring in a company's expected earnings growth rate. HRL currently has a PEG ratio of 3.08.

Another notable valuation metric for PPC is its P/B ratio of 2.52. The P/B ratio is used to compare a stock's market value with its book value, which is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. For comparison, HRL has a P/B of 3.34.

These are just a few of the metrics contributing to PPC's Value grade of B and HRL's Value grade of C.

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


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