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LGND or TECH: Which Is the Better Value Stock Right Now?

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Investors with an interest in Medical - Biomedical and Genetics stocks have likely encountered both Ligand Pharmaceuticals (LGND - Free Report) and Techne (TECH - 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.

Everyone has their own methods for finding great value opportunities, but our model includes pairing an impressive grade in the Value category of our Style Scores system with a strong Zacks Rank. 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.

Ligand Pharmaceuticals has a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy), while Techne has a Zacks Rank of #4 (Sell) right now. This system places an emphasis on companies that have seen positive earnings estimate revisions, so investors should feel comfortable knowing that LGND is likely seeing its earnings outlook improve to a greater extent. But this is only part of the picture for value investors.

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.

LGND currently has a forward P/E ratio of 27.45, while TECH has a forward P/E of 62.10. We also note that LGND has a PEG ratio of 1.83. This metric is used similarly to the famous P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also takes into account the stock's expected earnings growth rate. TECH currently has a PEG ratio of 10.35.

Another notable valuation metric for LGND is its P/B ratio of 2.46. 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, TECH has a P/B of 7.84.

These are just a few of the metrics contributing to LGND's Value grade of A and TECH's Value grade of D.

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


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