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ALC vs. ISRG: Which Stock Should Value Investors Buy Now?

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Investors interested in Medical - Instruments stocks are likely familiar with Alcon (ALC - Free Report) and Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (ISRG - Free Report) . But which of these two stocks presents investors with the better value opportunity right now? Let's 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 favors stocks with strong earnings estimate revision trends, and our Style Scores highlight companies with specific traits.

Alcon and Intuitive Surgical, Inc. are sporting Zacks Ranks of #2 (Buy) and #4 (Sell), respectively, right now. Investors should feel comfortable knowing that ALC likely has seen a stronger improvement to its earnings outlook than ISRG has recently. 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.

ALC currently has a forward P/E ratio of 26.79, while ISRG has a forward P/E of 43.17. We also note that ALC has a PEG ratio of 1.87. This popular metric is similar to the widely-known P/E ratio, with the difference being that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company's expected earnings growth rate. ISRG currently has a PEG ratio of 3.62.

Another notable valuation metric for ALC is its P/B ratio of 1.69. 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, ISRG has a P/B of 7.23.

These are just a few of the metrics contributing to ALC's Value grade of B and ISRG's Value grade of D.

ALC is currently sporting an improving earnings outlook, which makes it stick out in our Zacks Rank model. And, based on the above valuation metrics, we feel that ALC is likely the superior value option right now.


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