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SYNH or FCHS: Which Is the Better Value Stock Right Now?

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Investors with an interest in Medical Services stocks have likely encountered both Syneos Health and First Choice Healthcare Solutions, Inc. (FCHS - 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.

The best way to find great value stocks is to pair a strong Zacks Rank with an impressive grade in the Value category of our Style Scores system. The Zacks Rank is a proven strategy that targets companies with positive earnings estimate revision trends, while our Style Scores work to grade companies based on specific traits.

Syneos Health and First Choice Healthcare Solutions, Inc. are sporting Zacks Ranks of #2 (Buy) and #5 (Strong Sell), respectively, right now. This means that SYNH's earnings estimate revision activity has been more impressive, so investors should feel comfortable with its improving analyst outlook. But this is just one factor that value investors are interested in.

Value investors analyze a variety of traditional, tried-and-true metrics to help find companies 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.

SYNH currently has a forward P/E ratio of 18.51, while FCHS has a forward P/E of 20.55. We also note that SYNH has a PEG ratio of 1.06. This figure is similar to the commonly-used P/E ratio, with the PEG ratio also factoring in a company's expected earnings growth rate. FCHS currently has a PEG ratio of 1.37.

Another notable valuation metric for SYNH is its P/B ratio of 1.82. 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, FCHS has a P/B of 3.03.

These are just a few of the metrics contributing to SYNH's Value grade of B and FCHS's Value grade of D.

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


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