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Should Value Investors Buy Argo Group (ARGO) 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, perhaps no stock market trend is more popular than value investing, which is a strategy that has proven to be successful in all sorts of market environments. 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.

One company value investors might notice is Argo Group . ARGO is currently holding a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy) and a Value grade of A. The stock is trading with P/E ratio of 9.02 right now. For comparison, its industry sports an average P/E of 25.25. ARGO's Forward P/E has been as high as 27.47 and as low as 4.73, with a median of 9.07, all within the past year.

Another notable valuation metric for ARGO is its P/B ratio of 0.81. The P/B ratio is used to compare a stock's market value with 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 1.53. ARGO's P/B has been as high as 1.28 and as low as 0.52, with a median of 0.85, 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. Some people prefer this metric because sales are harder to manipulate on an income statement. This means it could be a truer performance indicator. ARGO has a P/S ratio of 0.5. This compares to its industry's average P/S of 0.94.

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

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