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CECO or CWST: Which Is the Better Value Stock Right Now?

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Investors with an interest in Pollution Control stocks have likely encountered both CECO Environmental (CECO - Free Report) and Casella (CWST - 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.

CECO Environmental and Casella are sporting Zacks Ranks of #2 (Buy) and #3 (Hold), respectively, right now. This system places an emphasis on companies that have seen positive earnings estimate revisions, so investors should feel comfortable knowing that CECO is likely seeing its earnings outlook improve to a greater extent. But this is just one factor that value investors are interested in.

Value investors are also interested in a number of tried-and-true valuation metrics that help show when a company is undervalued at its current share price levels.

Our Value category grades stocks based on a number of key metrics, including the tried-and-true P/E ratio, the P/S ratio, earnings yield, and cash flow per share, as well as a variety of other fundamentals that value investors frequently use.

CECO currently has a forward P/E ratio of 16.17, while CWST has a forward P/E of 76.79. We also note that CECO has a PEG ratio of 1.08. 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. CWST currently has a PEG ratio of 5.14.

Another notable valuation metric for CECO is its P/B ratio of 1.89. 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, CWST has a P/B of 9.66.

These metrics, and several others, help CECO earn a Value grade of B, while CWST has been given a Value grade of D.

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


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CECO Environmental Corp. (CECO) - free report >>

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