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SKFRY vs. ESAB: Which Stock Should Value Investors Buy Now?

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Investors interested in stocks from the Metal Products - Procurement and Fabrication sector have probably already heard of AB SKF (SKFRY - Free Report) and Esab (ESAB - Free Report) . But which of these two stocks presents investors with the better value opportunity right now? Let's 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 Zacks Rank is a proven strategy that targets companies with positive earnings estimate revision trends, while our Style Scores work to grade companies based on specific traits.

Both AB SKF and Esab have a Zacks Rank of # 2 (Buy) right now. This system places an emphasis on companies that have seen positive earnings estimate revisions, so investors should feel comfortable knowing that these stocks have improving earnings outlooks. However, value investors will care about much more than just this.

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.

SKFRY currently has a forward P/E ratio of 13.21, while ESAB has a forward P/E of 19.15. We also note that SKFRY has a PEG ratio of 0.92. This popular figure is similar to the widely-used P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also considers a company's expected EPS growth rate. ESAB currently has a PEG ratio of 1.63.

Another notable valuation metric for SKFRY is its P/B ratio of 1.70. 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, ESAB has a P/B of 3.38.

These are just a few of the metrics contributing to SKFRY's Value grade of A and ESAB's Value grade of C.

Both SKFRY and ESAB are impressive stocks with solid earnings outlooks, but based on these valuation figures, we feel that SKFRY is the superior value option right now.


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