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DVA or CHE: Which Is the Better Value Stock Right Now?

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Investors interested in Medical - Outpatient and Home Healthcare stocks are likely familiar with DaVita HealthCare (DVA - Free Report) and Chemed (CHE - 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.

Currently, DaVita HealthCare has a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), while Chemed has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold). This system places an emphasis on companies that have seen positive earnings estimate revisions, so investors should feel comfortable knowing that DVA is likely seeing its earnings outlook improve to a greater extent. But this is only part of the picture for value investors.

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 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.

DVA currently has a forward P/E ratio of 10.69, while CHE has a forward P/E of 28.66. We also note that DVA has a PEG ratio of 0.84. 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. CHE currently has a PEG ratio of 3.22.

Another notable valuation metric for DVA is its P/B ratio of 5.94. 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, CHE has a P/B of 8.62.

These metrics, and several others, help DVA earn a Value grade of A, while CHE has been given a Value grade of D.

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


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