TAL or LAUR: Which Is the Better Value Stock Right Now?

Investors interested in stocks from the Schools sector have probably already heard of TAL Education (TAL) and Laureate Education (LAUR). But which of these two stocks is more attractive to value investors? We'll need to take a closer look to find out.

We have found that the best way to discover great value opportunities is to pair a strong Zacks Rank with a great 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.

Currently, TAL Education has a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy), while Laureate Education has a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy). Investors should feel comfortable knowing that TAL likely has seen a stronger improvement to its earnings outlook than LAUR has recently. But this is only part of the picture for value investors.

Value investors analyze a variety of traditional, tried-and-true metrics to help find companies 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.

TAL currently has a forward P/E ratio of 7.50, while LAUR has a forward P/E of 18.41. We also note that TAL has a PEG ratio of 0.55. This popular figure is similar to the widely-used P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also considers a company's expected EPS growth rate. LAUR currently has a PEG ratio of 1.23.

Another notable valuation metric for TAL is its P/B ratio of 1.38. 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, LAUR has a P/B of 4.71.

Based on these metrics and many more, TAL holds a Value grade of A, while LAUR has a Value grade of C.

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

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

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