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Are Investors Undervaluing CNO Financial Group (CNO) Right Now?

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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.

Considering these trends, value investing is clearly one of the most preferred ways to find strong stocks in any type of market. Value investors rely on traditional forms of analysis on key valuation metrics to find stocks that they believe are undervalued, leaving room for profits.

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 CNO Financial Group (CNO - Free Report) . CNO is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy) and an A for Value.

Another notable valuation metric for CNO is its P/B ratio of 1.41. 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. This stock's P/B looks attractive against its industry's average P/B of 2.11. CNO's P/B has been as high as 1.67 and as low as 1.15, with a median of 1.35, over the past year.

Value investors also use the P/S ratio. The P/S ratio is is calculated as price divided by sales. This is a popular metric because sales are harder to manipulate on an income statement, so they are often considered a better performance indicator. CNO has a P/S ratio of 0.78. This compares to its industry's average P/S of 0.94.

These are just a handful of the figures considered in CNO Financial Group'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 CNO is an impressive value stock right now.


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