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URI vs. ROAD: Which Stock Is the Better Value Option?

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Investors with an interest in Building Products - Miscellaneous stocks have likely encountered both United Rentals (URI - Free Report) and Construction Partners (ROAD - 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 proven Zacks Rank puts an emphasis on earnings estimates and estimate revisions, while our Style Scores work to identify stocks with specific traits.

United Rentals has a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy), while Construction Partners 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 URI is likely seeing its earnings outlook improve to a greater extent. But this is just one piece of the puzzle for value investors.

Value investors also try to analyze a wide range of traditional figures and metrics to help determine whether a company is undervalued at its 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.

URI currently has a forward P/E ratio of 8.89, while ROAD has a forward P/E of 32.57. We also note that URI has a PEG ratio of 0.50. 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. ROAD currently has a PEG ratio of 0.88.

Another notable valuation metric for URI is its P/B ratio of 3.26. The P/B is a method of comparing a stock's market value to its book value, which is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. By comparison, ROAD has a P/B of 3.28.

Based on these metrics and many more, URI holds a Value grade of A, while ROAD has a Value grade of C.

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


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