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AHCO or PBH: Which Is the Better Value Stock Right Now?

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Investors interested in stocks from the Medical - Products sector have probably already heard of AdaptHealth Corp. (AHCO - Free Report) and Prestige Consumer Healthcare (PBH - Free Report) . But which of these two stocks is more attractive to value investors? We'll need to take a closer look to find out.

There are plenty of strategies for discovering value stocks, but we have found that pairing a strong Zacks Rank with an impressive grade in the Value category of our Style Scores system produces the best returns. The Zacks Rank favors stocks with strong earnings estimate revision trends, and our Style Scores highlight companies with specific traits.

AdaptHealth Corp. has a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), while Prestige Consumer Healthcare has a Zacks Rank of #5 (Strong Sell) right now. This means that AHCO's earnings estimate revision activity has been more impressive, so investors should feel comfortable with its improving analyst outlook. But this is just one piece of the puzzle for value investors.

Value investors are also interested in a number of tried-and-true valuation metrics that help show when a company is undervalued at its 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.

AHCO currently has a forward P/E ratio of 9.79, while PBH has a forward P/E of 15.45. We also note that AHCO has a PEG ratio of 0.55. This popular figure is similar to the widely-used P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also considers a company's expected EPS growth rate. PBH currently has a PEG ratio of 1.93.

Another notable valuation metric for AHCO is its P/B ratio of 0.85. 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. By comparison, PBH has a P/B of 2.05.

These are just a few of the metrics contributing to AHCO's Value grade of A and PBH's Value grade of C.

AHCO has seen stronger estimate revision activity and sports more attractive valuation metrics than PBH, so it seems like value investors will conclude that AHCO is the superior option right now.


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