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Should Value Investors Buy Northeast Community Bancorp (NECB) Stock?

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Here at Zacks, our focus is on the proven Zacks Rank system, which emphasizes earnings estimates and estimate revisions to find great stocks. Nevertheless, we are always paying attention to the latest value, growth, and momentum trends to underscore strong picks.

Of these, value investing is easily one of the most popular ways to find great stocks in any market environment. Value investors rely on traditional forms of analysis on key valuation metrics to find stocks that they believe are undervalued, leaving room for profits.

Zacks has developed the innovative Style Scores system to highlight stocks with specific traits. For example, value investors will be interested in stocks with great grades in the "Value" category. When paired with a high Zacks Rank, "A" grades in the Value category are among the strongest value stocks on the market today.

Northeast Community Bancorp (NECB - Free Report) is a stock many investors are watching right now. NECB is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy) and an A for Value. The stock is trading with P/E ratio of 6.06 right now. For comparison, its industry sports an average P/E of 8.68. Over the past 52 weeks, NECB's Forward P/E has been as high as 8.37 and as low as 5.61, with a median of 6.74.

We should also highlight that NECB has a P/B ratio of 0.80. The P/B is a method of comparing a stock's market value to 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 1.09. Over the past 12 months, NECB's P/B has been as high as 0.99 and as low as 0.74, with a median of 0.84.

Value investors also love the P/S ratio, which is calculated by simply dividing a stock's price with the company's sales. This is a popular metric because sales are harder to manipulate on an income statement, so they are often considered a better performance indicator. NECB has a P/S ratio of 1.63. This compares to its industry's average P/S of 1.67.

Finally, we should also recognize that NECB has a P/CF ratio of 4.68. This metric takes into account a company's operating cash flow and can be used to find stocks that are undervalued based on their solid cash outlook. NECB's P/CF compares to its industry's average P/CF of 11.07. NECB's P/CF has been as high as 7.56 and as low as 4.58, with a median of 5.51, all within the past year.

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


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