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Is Assurant (AIZ) Stock Undervalued Right Now?

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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.

One company value investors might notice is Assurant (AIZ - Free Report) . AIZ is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), as well as a Value grade of A.

Another valuation metric that we should highlight is AIZ's P/B ratio of 2.05. 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 company's current P/B looks solid when compared to its industry's average P/B of 2.66. Within the past 52 weeks, AIZ's P/B has been as high as 2.05 and as low as 1.31, with a median of 1.65.

Value investors also love the P/S ratio, which is calculated by simply dividing a stock's price with the company's sales. Some people prefer this metric because sales are harder to manipulate on an income statement. This means it could be a truer performance indicator. AIZ has a P/S ratio of 0.82. This compares to its industry's average P/S of 0.99.

Value investors will likely look at more than just these metrics, but the above data helps show that Assurant is likely undervalued currently. And when considering the strength of its earnings outlook, AIZ sticks out at as one of the market's strongest value stocks.


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