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ENS or ETN: Which Is the Better Value Stock Right Now?

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Investors interested in stocks from the Manufacturing - Electronics sector have probably already heard of EnerSys (ENS - Free Report) and Eaton (ETN - Free Report) . But which of these two stocks presents investors with the better value opportunity right now? Let's take a closer look.

There are plenty of strategies for discovering value stocks, but we have found that pairing a strong Zacks Rank with an impressive grade in the Value category of our Style Scores system produces the best returns. 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.

EnerSys has a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), while Eaton has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) right now. The Zacks Rank favors stocks that have recently seen positive revisions to their earnings estimates, so investors should rest assured that ENS has an improving earnings outlook. But this is only part of the picture for value investors.

Value investors also try to analyze a wide range of traditional figures and metrics to help determine whether a company is undervalued at its 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.

ENS currently has a forward P/E ratio of 10.47, while ETN has a forward P/E of 30.65. We also note that ENS has a PEG ratio of 0.58. 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. ETN currently has a PEG ratio of 2.56.

Another notable valuation metric for ENS is its P/B ratio of 2.19. 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, ETN has a P/B of 7.62.

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

ENS has seen stronger estimate revision activity and sports more attractive valuation metrics than ETN, so it seems like value investors will conclude that ENS is the superior option right now.


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