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Should Value Investors Buy Telefonica (TEF) Stock?

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Here at Zacks, we focus on our proven ranking system, which places an emphasis on earnings estimates and estimate revisions, to find winning stocks. But we also understand that investors develop their own strategies, so we are constantly looking at the latest trends in value, growth, and momentum to find strong companies for our readers.

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.

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 Telefonica (TEF - Free Report) . TEF is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), as well as an A grade for Value. The stock is trading with P/E ratio of 14.20 right now. For comparison, its industry sports an average P/E of 17.13. Over the past 52 weeks, TEF's Forward P/E has been as high as 14.75 and as low as 11.90, with a median of 13.28.

Another notable valuation metric for TEF is its P/B ratio of 0.96. 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 company's current P/B looks solid when compared to its industry's average P/B of 2.17. Within the past 52 weeks, TEF's P/B has been as high as 1.04 and as low as 0.65, with a median of 0.86.

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. TEF has a P/S ratio of 0.59. This compares to its industry's average P/S of 1.22.

These are just a handful of the figures considered in Telefonica'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 TEF is an impressive value stock right now.


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