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Should Value Investors Buy Manulife Financial Corp (MFC) 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 rely on traditional forms of analysis on key valuation metrics to find stocks that they believe are undervalued, leaving room for profits.

Zacks has developed the innovative Style Scores system to highlight stocks with specific traits. For example, value investors will be interested in stocks with great grades in the "Value" category. When paired with a high Zacks Rank, "A" grades in the Value category are among the strongest value stocks on the market today.

One company value investors might notice is Manulife Financial Corp (MFC - Free Report) . MFC is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), as well as a Value grade of A.

We should also highlight that MFC has a P/B ratio of 1.66. 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. MFC's current P/B looks attractive when compared to its industry's average P/B of 1.99. MFC's P/B has been as high as 1.66 and as low as 0.99, with a median of 1.38, over the past year.

Finally, investors will want to recognize that MFC has a P/CF ratio of 15.23. This metric takes into account a company's operating cash flow and can be used to find stocks that are undervalued based on their solid cash outlook. This stock's P/CF looks attractive against its industry's average P/CF of 17.94. Over the past 52 weeks, MFC's P/CF has been as high as 15.23 and as low as 5.16, with a median of 9.94.

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


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