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Should Value Investors Buy Axa (AXAHY) 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 fundamental analysis and traditional valuation metrics to find stocks that they believe are being undervalued by the market at large.

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 stock to keep an eye on is Axa (AXAHY - Free Report) . AXAHY is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), as well as an A grade for Value. The stock has a Forward P/E ratio of 7.98. This compares to its industry's average Forward P/E of 8.30. Over the past year, AXAHY's Forward P/E has been as high as 9.12 and as low as 6.47, with a median of 8.04.

Another valuation metric that we should highlight is AXAHY's P/B ratio of 1.34. The P/B is a method of comparing a stock's market value to 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 2.70. Within the past 52 weeks, AXAHY's P/B has been as high as 1.55 and as low as 0.90, with a median of 1.35.

These are just a handful of the figures considered in Axa's great Value grade. Still, they help show that the stock is likely being undervalued at the moment. Add this to the strength of its earnings outlook, and we can clearly see that AXAHY is an impressive value stock right now.


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