Back to top

Image: Bigstock

Should Value Investors Buy The Hanover Insurance Group (THG) Stock?

Read MoreHide Full Article

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 rely on traditional forms of analysis on key valuation metrics to find stocks that they believe are undervalued, leaving room for profits.

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 to watch right now is The Hanover Insurance Group (THG - Free Report) . THG is currently holding a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) and a Value grade of A. The stock is trading with P/E ratio of 10.86 right now. For comparison, its industry sports an average P/E of 26.49. Over the past year, THG's Forward P/E has been as high as 13.52 and as low as 10.12, with a median of 11.25.

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. THG has a P/S ratio of 1.1. This compares to its industry's average P/S of 1.23.

Finally, investors will want to recognize that THG has a P/CF ratio of 11.21. This metric focuses on a firm's operating cash flow and is often used to find stocks that are undervalued based on the strength of their cash outlook. This stock's P/CF looks attractive against its industry's average P/CF of 11.29. Over the past 52 weeks, THG's P/CF has been as high as 19.14 and as low as 10.39, with a median of 13.62.

These figures are just a handful of the metrics value investors tend to look at, but they help show that The Hanover Insurance Group is likely being undervalued right now. Considering this, as well as the strength of its earnings outlook, THG feels like a great value stock at the moment.

Published in