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BLD or GCP: Which Is the Better Value Stock Right Now?

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Investors with an interest in Building Products - Miscellaneous stocks have likely encountered both TopBuild (BLD - Free Report) and GCP Applied Technologies . But which of these two stocks presents investors with the better value opportunity right now? Let's take a closer look.

We have found that the best way to discover great value opportunities is to pair a strong Zacks Rank with a great grade in the Value category of our Style Scores system. 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.

TopBuild and GCP Applied Technologies are sporting Zacks Ranks of #1 (Strong Buy) and #4 (Sell), respectively, right now. This means that BLD's earnings estimate revision activity has been more impressive, so investors should feel comfortable with its improving analyst outlook. However, value investors will care about much more than just this.

Value investors also try to analyze a wide range of traditional figures and metrics to help determine whether a company is undervalued at its 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.

BLD currently has a forward P/E ratio of 15.66, while GCP has a forward P/E of 20.86. We also note that BLD has a PEG ratio of 0.56. This figure is similar to the commonly-used P/E ratio, with the PEG ratio also factoring in a company's expected earnings growth rate. GCP currently has a PEG ratio of 1.16.

Another notable valuation metric for BLD is its P/B ratio of 2.51. The P/B ratio pits a stock's market value against its book value, which is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. For comparison, GCP has a P/B of 3.12.

These are just a few of the metrics contributing to BLD's Value grade of B and GCP's Value grade of D.

BLD has seen stronger estimate revision activity and sports more attractive valuation metrics than GCP, so it seems like value investors will conclude that BLD is the superior option right now.


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