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Should Value Investors Buy Universal Truckload Services (ULH) 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 rely on traditional forms of analysis on key valuation metrics to find stocks that they believe are undervalued, leaving room for profits.

Zacks has developed the innovative Style Scores system to highlight stocks with specific traits. For example, value investors will be interested in stocks with great grades in the "Value" category. When paired with a high Zacks Rank, "A" grades in the Value category are among the strongest value stocks on the market today.

One company value investors might notice is Universal Truckload Services (ULH - Free Report) . ULH is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy) and an A for Value.

We should also highlight that ULH has a P/B ratio of 2.61. The P/B ratio pits a stock's market value against its book value, which is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. This stock's P/B looks solid versus its industry's average P/B of 3.05. ULH's P/B has been as high as 2.82 and as low as 1.52, with a median of 2.37, over the past year.

Value investors also love the P/S ratio, which is calculated by simply dividing a stock's price with the company's sales. This is a prefered metric because revenue can't really be manipulated, so sales are often a truer performance indicator. ULH has a P/S ratio of 0.43. This compares to its industry's average P/S of 1.17.

Finally, investors will want to recognize that ULH has a P/CF ratio of 5.04. This data point considers a firm's operating cash flow and is frequently used to find companies that are undervalued when considering their solid cash outlook. This stock's P/CF looks attractive against its industry's average P/CF of 14.67. Within the past 12 months, ULH's P/CF has been as high as 6.25 and as low as 2.77, with a median of 4.66.

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


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