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Should Value Investors Buy Great Lakes Dredge & Dock (GLDD) 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.

Looking at the history of these trends, perhaps none is more beloved than value investing. This strategy simply looks to identify companies that are being undervalued by the broader 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.

Great Lakes Dredge & Dock (GLDD - Free Report) is a stock many investors are watching right now. GLDD is currently holding a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) and a Value grade of A. The stock is trading with P/E ratio of 11.97 right now. For comparison, its industry sports an average P/E of 22.36. Over the past year, GLDD's Forward P/E has been as high as 15.23 and as low as 9.59, with a median of 12.40.

We also note that GLDD holds a PEG ratio of 1.00. 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. GLDD's industry currently sports an average PEG of 1.37. Over the past 52 weeks, GLDD's PEG has been as high as 1.20 and as low as 0.27, with a median of 0.95.

Value investors also use the P/S ratio. The P/S ratio is calculated as price divided by 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. GLDD has a P/S ratio of 0.96. This compares to its industry's average P/S of 1.09.

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


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