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URI or IBP: Which Is the Better Value Stock Right Now?

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Investors looking for stocks in the Building Products - Miscellaneous sector might want to consider either United Rentals (URI - Free Report) or Installed Building Products (IBP - Free Report) . But which of these two stocks offers value investors a better bang for their buck right now? We'll need to take a closer look.

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.

Currently, United Rentals has a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), while Installed Building Products has a Zacks Rank of #5 (Strong Sell). Investors should feel comfortable knowing that URI likely has seen a stronger improvement to its earnings outlook than IBP has recently. But this is just one piece of the puzzle 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.

URI currently has a forward P/E ratio of 10.50, while IBP has a forward P/E of 17.31. We also note that URI has a PEG ratio of 0.59. 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. IBP currently has a PEG ratio of 0.69.

Another notable valuation metric for URI is its P/B ratio of 4.42. The P/B ratio is used to compare a stock's market value with its book value, which is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. For comparison, IBP has a P/B of 6.99.

These are just a few of the metrics contributing to URI's Value grade of A and IBP's Value grade of C.

URI stands above IBP thanks to its solid earnings outlook, and based on these valuation figures, we also feel that URI is the superior value option right now.


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