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Should Value Investors Buy Ping An Insurance Co. of China (PNGAY) 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.

Of these, perhaps no stock market trend is more popular than value investing, which is a strategy that has proven to be successful in all sorts of market environments. Value investors use fundamental analysis and traditional valuation metrics to find stocks that they believe are being undervalued by the market at large.

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.

One company value investors might notice is Ping An Insurance Co. of China (PNGAY - Free Report) . PNGAY is currently holding a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) and a Value grade of A. The stock is trading with P/E ratio of 6.33 right now. For comparison, its industry sports an average P/E of 8.55. PNGAY's Forward P/E has been as high as 7.81 and as low as 4.52, with a median of 5.81, all within the past year.

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. PNGAY has a P/S ratio of 0.8. This compares to its industry's average P/S of 1.1.

Scor (SCRYY - Free Report) may be another strong Insurance - Multi line stock to add to your shortlist. SCRYY is a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy) stock with a Value grade of A.

Additionally, Scor has a P/B ratio of 1.25 while its industry's price-to-book ratio sits at 2.53. For SCRYY, this valuation metric has been as high as 1.32, as low as 0.76, with a median of 1.01 over the past year.

These figures are just a handful of the metrics value investors tend to look at, but they help show that Ping An Insurance Co. of China and Scor are likely being undervalued right now. Considering this, as well as the strength of its earnings outlook, PNGAY and SCRYY feels like a great value stock at the moment.


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Ping An Insurance Co. of China Ltd. (PNGAY) - free report >>

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