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UBS or CMWAY: Which Is the Better Value Stock Right Now?

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Investors interested in Banks - Foreign stocks are likely familiar with UBS (UBS - Free Report) and Commonwealth Bank of Australia Sponsored ADR (CMWAY - Free Report) . But which of these two stocks is more attractive to value investors? We'll need to take a closer look to find out.

There are plenty of strategies for discovering value stocks, but we have found that pairing a strong Zacks Rank with an impressive grade in the Value category of our Style Scores system produces the best returns. 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.

UBS and Commonwealth Bank of Australia Sponsored ADR are sporting Zacks Ranks of #1 (Strong Buy) and #2 (Buy), respectively, right now. This system places an emphasis on companies that have seen positive earnings estimate revisions, so investors should feel comfortable knowing that UBS is likely seeing its earnings outlook improve to a greater extent. But this is only part of the picture for value investors.

Value investors also tend to look at a number of traditional, tried-and-true figures to help them find stocks that they believe are undervalued at their 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.

UBS currently has a forward P/E ratio of 17.11, while CMWAY has a forward P/E of 24.90. We also note that UBS has a PEG ratio of 0.54. 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. CMWAY currently has a PEG ratio of 9.76.

Another notable valuation metric for UBS is its P/B ratio of 1.59. 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. By comparison, CMWAY has a P/B of 3.32.

These are just a few of the metrics contributing to UBS's Value grade of B and CMWAY's Value grade of D.

UBS sticks out from CMWAY in both our Zacks Rank and Style Scores models, so value investors will likely feel that UBS is the better option right now.


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