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Should Value Investors Buy Shinhan Financial Group Co (SHG) Stock?

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Here at Zacks, we focus on our proven ranking system, which places an emphasis on earnings estimates and estimate revisions, to find winning stocks. But we also understand that investors develop their own strategies, so we are constantly looking at the latest trends in value, growth, and momentum to find strong companies for our readers.

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.

In addition to the Zacks Rank, investors looking for stocks with specific traits can utilize our Style Scores system. Of course, value investors will be most interested in the system's "Value" category. Stocks with "A" grades for Value and high Zacks Ranks are among the best value stocks available at any given moment.

One company to watch right now is Shinhan Financial Group Co (SHG - Free Report) . SHG is currently sporting a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), as well as an A grade for Value. The stock is trading with P/E ratio of 6.31 right now. For comparison, its industry sports an average P/E of 11.00. Over the past 52 weeks, SHG's Forward P/E has been as high as 7.09 and as low as 4.11, with a median of 5.60.

We also note that SHG holds a PEG ratio of 0.51. This metric is used similarly to the famous P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also takes into account the stock's expected earnings growth rate. SHG's PEG compares to its industry's average PEG of 0.73. SHG's PEG has been as high as 0.72 and as low as 0.37, with a median of 0.51, all within the past year.

Value investors also love the P/S ratio, which is calculated by simply dividing a stock's price with the company's 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. SHG has a P/S ratio of 1.64. This compares to its industry's average P/S of 2.2.

These are only a few of the key metrics included in Shinhan Financial Group Co's strong Value grade, but they help show that the stock is likely undervalued right now. When factoring in the strength of its earnings outlook, SHG looks like an impressive value stock at the moment.

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