DOLE vs. CTVA: Which Stock Is the Better Value Option?

Investors interested in Agriculture - Operations stocks are likely familiar with Dole (DOLE) and Corteva, Inc. (CTVA). 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 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.

Dole has a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), while Corteva, Inc. has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) right now. This means that DOLE'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 also tend to look at a number of traditional, tried-and-true figures to help them find stocks 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.

DOLE currently has a forward P/E ratio of 9.90, while CTVA has a forward P/E of 22.40. We also note that DOLE has a PEG ratio of 1.46. This metric is used similarly to the famous P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also takes into account the stock's expected earnings growth rate. CTVA currently has a PEG ratio of 2.56.

Another notable valuation metric for DOLE is its P/B ratio of 0.87. The P/B ratio pits a stock's market value against its book value, which is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. For comparison, CTVA has a P/B of 2.19.

These are just a few of the metrics contributing to DOLE's Value grade of A and CTVA's Value grade of D.

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

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

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