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Should Value Investors Buy CRA International (CRAI) 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.

Of these, value investing is easily one of the most popular ways to find great stocks in any market environment. Value investors use a variety of methods, including tried-and-true valuation metrics, to find these stocks.

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 stock to keep an eye on is CRA International (CRAI - Free Report) . CRAI is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), as well as a Value grade of A. The stock is trading with P/E ratio of 16.15 right now. For comparison, its industry sports an average P/E of 20.50. Over the past 52 weeks, CRAI's Forward P/E has been as high as 27.85 and as low as 15.74, with a median of 23.72.

Value investors also frequently use the P/S ratio. This metric is found by dividing a stock's price with the company's revenue. This is a prefered metric because revenue can't really be manipulated, so sales are often a truer performance indicator. CRAI has a P/S ratio of 0.82. This compares to its industry's average P/S of 1.31.

These are just a handful of the figures considered in CRA International's great Value grade. Still, they help show that the stock is likely being undervalued at the moment. Add this to the strength of its earnings outlook, and we can clearly see that CRAI is an impressive value stock right now.


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