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Should Value Investors Buy Aaron's (AAN) 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.

Luckily, Zacks has developed its own Style Scores system in an effort to find stocks with specific traits. Value investors will be interested in the system's "Value" category. Stocks with both "A" grades in the Value category and high Zacks Ranks are among the strongest value stocks on the market right now.

One company to watch right now is Aaron's (AAN - Free Report) . AAN 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 10.40 right now. For comparison, its industry sports an average P/E of 11.16. Over the past 52 weeks, AAN's Forward P/E has been as high as 12.83 and as low as 4.30, with a median of 7.26.

Value investors also frequently use the P/S ratio. This metric is found by dividing a stock's price with the company's revenue. Some people prefer this metric because sales are harder to manipulate on an income statement. This means it could be a truer performance indicator. AAN has a P/S ratio of 0.18. This compares to its industry's average P/S of 0.47.

Another great Consumer Services - Miscellaneous stock you could consider is SP Plus , which is a # 2 (Buy) stock with a Value Score of A.

SP Plus also has a P/B ratio of 3.31 compared to its industry's price-to-book ratio of 4.35. Over the past year, its P/B ratio has been as high as 3.58, as low as 2.82, with a median of 3.19.

These figures are just a handful of the metrics value investors tend to look at, but they help show that Aaron's and SP Plus are likely being undervalued right now. Considering this, as well as the strength of its earnings outlook, AAN and SP feels like a great value stock at the moment.


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