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GTN vs. IHRT: Which Stock Is the Better Value Option?

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Investors with an interest in Broadcast Radio and Television stocks have likely encountered both Gray Television (GTN - Free Report) and iHeartMedia (IHRT - 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.

Everyone has their own methods for finding great value opportunities, but our model includes pairing an impressive grade in the Value category of our Style Scores system with a strong Zacks Rank. The proven Zacks Rank puts an emphasis on earnings estimates and estimate revisions, while our Style Scores work to identify stocks with specific traits.

Gray Television has a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), while iHeartMedia has a Zacks Rank of #4 (Sell) right now. Investors should feel comfortable knowing that GTN likely has seen a stronger improvement to its earnings outlook than IHRT has recently. However, value investors will care about much more than just this.

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.

The Style Score Value grade factors in a variety of key fundamental metrics, including the popular P/E ratio, P/S ratio, earnings yield, cash flow per share, and a number of other key stats that are commonly used by value investors.

GTN currently has a forward P/E ratio of 1.87, while IHRT has a forward P/E of 15.30. We also note that GTN has a PEG ratio of 0.19. 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. IHRT currently has a PEG ratio of 2.19.

Another notable valuation metric for GTN is its P/B ratio of 0.49. The P/B ratio pits a stock's market value against its book value, which is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. For comparison, IHRT has a P/B of 1.73.

These are just a few of the metrics contributing to GTN's Value grade of A and IHRT's Value grade of C.

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


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