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Should Value Investors Buy Panasonic (PCRFY) Stock?

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While the proven Zacks Rank places an emphasis on earnings estimates and estimate revisions to find strong stocks, we also know that investors tend to develop their own individual strategies. With this in mind, we are always looking at value, growth, and momentum trends to discover great companies.

Considering these trends, value investing is clearly one of the most preferred ways to find strong stocks in any type of market. Value investors use fundamental analysis and traditional valuation metrics to find stocks that they believe are being undervalued by the market at large.

Luckily, Zacks has developed its own Style Scores system in an effort to find stocks with specific traits. Value investors will be interested in the system's "Value" category. Stocks with both "A" grades in the Value category and high Zacks Ranks are among the strongest value stocks on the market right now.

Panasonic is a stock many investors are watching right now. PCRFY is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy), as well as an A grade for Value. The stock is trading with P/E ratio of 12.36 right now. For comparison, its industry sports an average P/E of 15.31. Over the past 52 weeks, PCRFY's Forward P/E has been as high as 15.53 and as low as 9.25, with a median of 11.51.

Another valuation metric that we should highlight is PCRFY's P/B ratio of 1.04. 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. This stock's P/B looks solid versus its industry's average P/B of 1.59. Over the past year, PCRFY's P/B has been as high as 1.09 and as low as 0.59, with a median of 0.80.

Value investors also use the P/S ratio. The P/S ratio is is calculated as price divided by sales. This is a prefered metric because revenue can't really be manipulated, so sales are often a truer performance indicator. PCRFY has a P/S ratio of 0.47. This compares to its industry's average P/S of 0.63.

Finally, our model also underscores that PCRFY has a P/CF ratio of 5.55. This figure highlights a company's operating cash flow and can be used to find firms that are undervalued when considering their impressive cash outlook. PCRFY's P/CF compares to its industry's average P/CF of 6.10. Within the past 12 months, PCRFY's P/CF has been as high as 5.79 and as low as 3.34, with a median of 4.29.

These figures are just a handful of the metrics value investors tend to look at, but they help show that Panasonic is likely being undervalued right now. Considering this, as well as the strength of its earnings outlook, PCRFY feels like a great value stock at the moment.

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