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Should Value Investors Buy Central Garden & Pet (CENTA) 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.

Considering these trends, value investing is clearly one of the most preferred ways to find strong stocks in any type of market. Value investors use fundamental analysis and traditional valuation metrics to find stocks that they believe are being undervalued by the market at large.

On top of the Zacks Rank, investors can also look at our innovative Style Scores system to find stocks with specific traits. For example, value investors will want to focus on the "Value" category. Stocks with high Zacks Ranks and "A" grades for Value will be some of the highest-quality value stocks on the market today.

One company to watch right now is Central Garden & Pet (CENTA - Free Report) . CENTA is currently sporting a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) and an A for Value. The stock is trading with a P/E ratio of 11.58, which compares to its industry's average of 14.36. CENTA's Forward P/E has been as high as 16.39 and as low as 11.42, with a median of 13.11, all within the past year.

We should also highlight that CENTA has a P/B ratio of 1.24. The P/B ratio pits a stock's market value against its book value, which is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. This stock's P/B looks solid versus its industry's average P/B of 2.93. Within the past 52 weeks, CENTA's P/B has been as high as 1.58 and as low as 1.20, with a median of 1.35.

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

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