HSTM or SHOP: Which Is the Better Value Stock Right Now?

Investors interested in stocks from the Internet - Services sector have probably already heard of HealthStream (HSTM) and Shopify (SHOP). 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.

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 favors stocks with strong earnings estimate revision trends, and our Style Scores highlight companies with specific traits.

Currently, HealthStream has a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), while Shopify has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold). Investors should feel comfortable knowing that HSTM likely has seen a stronger improvement to its earnings outlook than SHOP has recently. But this is just one factor that value investors are interested in.

Value investors are also interested in a number of tried-and-true valuation metrics that help show when a company is undervalued at its 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.

HSTM currently has a forward P/E ratio of 34.93, while SHOP has a forward P/E of 110.41. We also note that HSTM has a PEG ratio of 2.91. 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. SHOP currently has a PEG ratio of 4.47.

Another notable valuation metric for HSTM is its P/B ratio of 2.03. The P/B ratio is used to compare a stock's market value with its book value, which is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. For comparison, SHOP has a P/B of 16.64.

Based on these metrics and many more, HSTM holds a Value grade of B, while SHOP has a Value grade of F.

HSTM sticks out from SHOP in both our Zacks Rank and Style Scores models, so value investors will likely feel that HSTM is the better option right now.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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