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BCS or NRDBY: Which Is the Better Value Stock Right Now?

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Investors looking for stocks in the Banks - Foreign sector might want to consider either Barclays (BCS - Free Report) or Nordea Bank AB (NRDBY - 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.

Everyone has their own methods for finding great value opportunities, but our model includes pairing an impressive grade in the Value category of our Style Scores system with a strong Zacks Rank. The proven Zacks Rank emphasizes companies with positive estimate revision trends, and our Style Scores highlight stocks with specific traits.

Barclays and Nordea Bank AB are sporting Zacks Ranks of #2 (Buy) and #3 (Hold), respectively, right now. This means that BCS'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 also tend to look at a number of traditional, tried-and-true figures to help them find stocks that they believe are undervalued at their 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.

BCS currently has a forward P/E ratio of 6.40, while NRDBY has a forward P/E of 7.39. We also note that BCS has a PEG ratio of 0.59. This metric is used similarly to the famous P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also takes into account the stock's expected earnings growth rate. NRDBY currently has a PEG ratio of 0.71.

Another notable valuation metric for BCS is its P/B ratio of 0.44. Investors use the P/B ratio to look at a stock's market value versus its book value, which is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. By comparison, NRDBY has a P/B of 1.25.

These are just a few of the metrics contributing to BCS's Value grade of A and NRDBY's Value grade of D.

BCS sticks out from NRDBY in both our Zacks Rank and Style Scores models, so value investors will likely feel that BCS is the better option right now.


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