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.
Of these, value investing is easily one of the most popular ways to find great stocks in any market environment. Value investors rely on traditional forms of analysis on key valuation metrics to find stocks that they believe are undervalued, leaving room for profits.
On top of the Zacks Rank, investors can also look at our innovative Style Scores system to find stocks with specific traits. For example, value investors will want to focus on the "Value" category. Stocks with high Zacks Ranks and "A" grades for Value will be some of the highest-quality value stocks on the market today.
One company to watch right now is Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). ADM is currently sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), as well as a Value grade of A. The stock is trading with P/E ratio of 13.41 right now. For comparison, its industry sports an average P/E of 15.97. Over the last 12 months, ADM's Forward P/E has been as high as 14.13 and as low as 9.50, with a median of 11.12.
Value investors also love the P/S ratio, which is calculated by simply dividing a stock's price with the company's sales. This is a popular metric because sales are harder to manipulate on an income statement, so they are often considered a better performance indicator. ADM has a P/S ratio of 0.42. This compares to its industry's average P/S of 0.78.
Finally, we should also recognize that ADM has a P/CF ratio of 13.25. This figure highlights a company's operating cash flow and can be used to find firms that are undervalued when considering their impressive cash outlook. ADM's current P/CF looks attractive when compared to its industry's average P/CF of 15.06. Within the past 12 months, ADM's P/CF has been as high as 13.80 and as low as 7.44, with a median of 9.16.
Value investors will likely look at more than just these metrics, but the above data helps show that Archer Daniels Midland is likely undervalued currently. And when considering the strength of its earnings outlook, ADM sticks out as one of the market's strongest value stocks.
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Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM): Free Stock Analysis Report
This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).