AVNT vs. AIQUY: Which Stock Is the Better Value Option?

Investors interested in Chemical - Diversified stocks are likely familiar with Avient (AVNT) and Air Liquide (AIQUY). But which of these two stocks presents investors with the better value opportunity right now? Let's 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 puts an emphasis on earnings estimates and estimate revisions, while our Style Scores work to identify stocks with specific traits.

Avient has a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), while Air Liquide has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) right now. Investors should feel comfortable knowing that AVNT likely has seen a stronger improvement to its earnings outlook than AIQUY has recently. However, value investors will care about much more than just this.

Value investors also try to analyze a wide range of traditional figures and metrics to help determine whether 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.

AVNT currently has a forward P/E ratio of 13.32, while AIQUY has a forward P/E of 27.26. We also note that AVNT has a PEG ratio of 1.23. 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. AIQUY currently has a PEG ratio of 2.74.

Another notable valuation metric for AVNT is its P/B ratio of 1.6. 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, AIQUY has a P/B of 4.03.

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

AVNT stands above AIQUY thanks to its solid earnings outlook, and based on these valuation figures, we also feel that AVNT is the superior value option right now.

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

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