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Are Investors Undervaluing American Public Education (APEI) Right Now?

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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.

Considering these trends, value investing is clearly one of the most preferred ways to find strong stocks in any type of market. 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.

American Public Education (APEI - Free Report) is a stock many investors are watching right now. APEI 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 20.67 right now. For comparison, its industry sports an average P/E of 27.79. Over the past year, APEI's Forward P/E has been as high as 25.71 and as low as 16.12, with a median of 19.51.

Finally, investors will want to recognize that APEI has a P/CF ratio of 9.23. This metric takes into account a company's operating cash flow and can be used to find stocks that are undervalued based on their solid cash outlook. This company's current P/CF looks solid when compared to its industry's average P/CF of 31.30. Over the past 52 weeks, APEI's P/CF has been as high as 14.71 and as low as 8.35, with a median of 11.73.

These figures are just a handful of the metrics value investors tend to look at, but they help show that American Public Education is likely being undervalued right now. Considering this, as well as the strength of its earnings outlook, APEI feels like a great value stock at the moment.


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