Should Value Investors Buy Central Garden & Pet (CENT) Stock?

While the proven Zacks Rank places an emphasis on earnings estimates and estimate revisions to find strong stocks, we also know that investors tend to develop their own individual strategies. With this in mind, we are always looking at value, growth, and momentum trends to discover great companies.

Considering these trends, value investing is clearly one of the most preferred ways to find strong stocks in any type of market. Value investors use a variety of methods, including tried-and-true valuation metrics, to find these stocks.

Luckily, Zacks has developed its own Style Scores system in an effort to find stocks with specific traits. Value investors will be interested in the system's "Value" category. Stocks with both "A" grades in the Value category and high Zacks Ranks are among the strongest value stocks on the market right now.

One stock to keep an eye on is Central Garden & Pet (CENT). CENT is currently sporting a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), as well as a Value grade of A. The stock is trading with P/E ratio of 12.91 right now. For comparison, its industry sports an average P/E of 13.85. Over the past year, CENT's Forward P/E has been as high as 19.24 and as low as 12.63, with a median of 14.87.

Another notable valuation metric for CENT is its P/B ratio of 1.38. The P/B ratio pits a stock's market value against its book value, which is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. This stock's P/B looks attractive against its industry's average P/B of 2.83. Over the past year, CENT's P/B has been as high as 1.86 and as low as 1.33, with a median of 1.54.

These figures are just a handful of the metrics value investors tend to look at, but they help show that Central Garden & Pet is likely being undervalued right now. Considering this, as well as the strength of its earnings outlook, CENT feels like a great value stock at the moment.

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

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