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PPC or HRL: Which Is the Better Value Stock Right Now?

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Investors looking for stocks in the Food - Meat Products sector might want to consider either Pilgrim's Pride (PPC - Free Report) or Hormel Foods (HRL - Free Report) . But which of these two stocks presents investors with the better value opportunity right now? Let's 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 proven Zacks Rank emphasizes companies with positive estimate revision trends, and our Style Scores highlight stocks with specific traits.

Pilgrim's Pride and Hormel Foods are sporting Zacks Ranks of #2 (Buy) and #3 (Hold), respectively, right now. This system places an emphasis on companies that have seen positive earnings estimate revisions, so investors should feel comfortable knowing that PPC is likely seeing its earnings outlook improve to a greater extent. But this is just one factor that value investors are interested in.

Value investors analyze a variety of traditional, tried-and-true metrics to help find companies 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.

PPC currently has a forward P/E ratio of 16.22, while HRL has a forward P/E of 23.36. We also note that PPC has a PEG ratio of 0.82. 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. HRL currently has a PEG ratio of 2.75.

Another notable valuation metric for PPC is its P/B ratio of 3.29. Investors use the P/B ratio to look at a stock's market value versus its book value, which is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. By comparison, HRL has a P/B of 3.68.

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

PPC is currently sporting an improving earnings outlook, which makes it stick out in our Zacks Rank model. And, based on the above valuation metrics, we feel that PPC is likely the superior value option right now.


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