Investors interested in Transportation – Equipment and Leasing stocks are likely familiar with Air Lease (AL) and Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies (WAB). But which of these two stocks offers value investors a better bang for their buck right now? We’ll need to take a closer look.
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.
Air Lease and Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies are sporting Zacks Ranks of #2 (Buy) and #4 (Sell), respectively, right now. This system places an emphasis on companies that have seen positive earnings estimate revisions, so investors should feel comfortable knowing that AL is likely seeing its earnings outlook improve to a greater extent. But this is only part of the picture for value investors.
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.
The Style Score Value grade factors in a variety of key fundamental metrics, including the popular P/E ratio, P/S ratio, earnings yield, cash flow per share, and a number of other key stats that are commonly used by value investors.
AL currently has a forward P/E ratio of 6.36, while WAB has a forward P/E of 15.39. We also note that AL has a PEG ratio of 0.75. This popular metric is similar to the widely-known P/E ratio, with the difference being that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company’s expected earnings growth rate. WAB currently has a PEG ratio of 1.34.
Another notable valuation metric for AL is its P/B ratio of 0.88. 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. By comparison, WAB has a P/B of 2.30.
These are just a few of the metrics contributing to AL’s Value grade of A and WAB’s Value grade of D.
AL has seen stronger estimate revision activity and sports more attractive valuation metrics than WAB, so it seems like value investors will conclude that AL is the superior option right now.
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