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Are Investors Undervaluing Sonoco (SON) Right Now?

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Here at Zacks, we focus on our proven ranking system, which places an emphasis on earnings estimates and estimate revisions, to find winning stocks. But we also understand that investors develop their own strategies, so we are constantly looking at the latest trends in value, growth, and momentum to find strong companies for our readers.

Of these, value investing is easily one of the most popular ways to find great stocks in any market environment. Value investors use fundamental analysis and traditional valuation metrics to find stocks that they believe are being undervalued by the market at large.

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 Sonoco (SON - Free Report) . SON is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy) and an A for Value. The stock is trading with P/E ratio of 10 right now. For comparison, its industry sports an average P/E of 14.88. SON's Forward P/E has been as high as 11.34 and as low as 8.85, with a median of 10.18, all within the past year.

Investors will also notice that SON has a PEG ratio of 1.98. This figure is similar to the commonly-used P/E ratio, with the PEG ratio also factoring in a company's expected earnings growth rate. SON's industry has an average PEG of 3.02 right now. Within the past year, SON's PEG has been as high as 2.27 and as low as 1.77, with a median of 2.04.

Value investors also frequently use the P/S ratio. This metric is found by dividing a stock's price with the company's revenue. This is a popular metric because sales are harder to manipulate on an income statement, so they are often considered a better performance indicator. SON has a P/S ratio of 0.8. This compares to its industry's average P/S of 0.95.

Finally, we should also recognize that SON has a P/CF ratio of 7.43. This metric focuses on a firm's operating cash flow and is often used to find stocks that are undervalued based on the strength of their cash outlook. This stock's P/CF looks attractive against its industry's average P/CF of 27.20. Over the past 52 weeks, SON's P/CF has been as high as 8.22 and as low as 6.06, with a median of 6.94.

These are just a handful of the figures considered in Sonoco's great Value grade. Still, they help show that the stock is likely being undervalued at the moment. Add this to the strength of its earnings outlook, and we can clearly see that SON is an impressive value stock right now.


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