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PECO or FRT: Which Is the Better Value Stock Right Now?

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Investors looking for stocks in the REIT and Equity Trust - Retail sector might want to consider either Phillips Edison & Company, Inc. (PECO - Free Report) or Federal Realty Investment Trust (FRT - 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.

Phillips Edison & Company, Inc. and Federal Realty Investment Trust are sporting Zacks Ranks of #2 (Buy) and #3 (Hold), respectively, right now. Investors should feel comfortable knowing that PECO likely has seen a stronger improvement to its earnings outlook than FRT has recently. However, value investors will care about much more than just this.

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.

PECO currently has a forward P/E ratio of 14.63, while FRT has a forward P/E of 16.33. We also note that PECO has a PEG ratio of 2.15. This popular metric is similar to the widely-known P/E ratio, with the difference being that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company's expected earnings growth rate. FRT currently has a PEG ratio of 2.92.

Another notable valuation metric for PECO is its P/B ratio of 1.97. 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. By comparison, FRT has a P/B of 3.29.

These are just a few of the metrics contributing to PECO's Value grade of B and FRT's Value grade of C.

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

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