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Are Investors Undervaluing Universal Health Services (UHS) Right Now?

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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 use tried-and-true metrics and fundamental analysis to find companies that they believe are undervalued at their current share price levels.

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 company value investors might notice is Universal Health Services (UHS - Free Report) . UHS is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy), as well as a Value grade of A. The stock is trading with P/E ratio of 13.98 right now. For comparison, its industry sports an average P/E of 16.40. UHS's Forward P/E has been as high as 15.12 and as low as 10.83, with a median of 12.80, all within the past year.

Investors will also notice that UHS has a PEG ratio of 0.74. 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. UHS's industry has an average PEG of 1.21 right now. Over the past 52 weeks, UHS's PEG has been as high as 1.56 and as low as 0.69, with a median of 0.97.

These are only a few of the key metrics included in Universal Health Services's strong Value grade, but they help show that the stock is likely undervalued right now. When factoring in the strength of its earnings outlook, UHS looks like an impressive value stock at the moment.


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