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UTHR or ZTS: Which Is the Better Value Stock Right Now?

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Investors with an interest in Medical - Drugs stocks have likely encountered both United Therapeutics (UTHR - Free Report) and Zoetis (ZTS - Free Report) . But which of these two stocks offers value investors a better bang for their buck right now? We'll need to take a closer look.

Everyone has their own methods for finding great value opportunities, but our model includes pairing an impressive grade in the Value category of our Style Scores system with a strong Zacks Rank. 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.

United Therapeutics and Zoetis are sporting Zacks Ranks of #2 (Buy) and #3 (Hold), respectively, right now. This means that UTHR's earnings estimate revision activity has been more impressive, so investors should feel comfortable with its improving analyst outlook. However, value investors will care about much more than just this.

Value investors also tend to look at a number of traditional, tried-and-true figures to help them find stocks 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.

UTHR currently has a forward P/E ratio of 12.63, while ZTS has a forward P/E of 27.56. We also note that UTHR has a PEG ratio of 0.92. 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. ZTS currently has a PEG ratio of 2.77.

Another notable valuation metric for UTHR is its P/B ratio of 2.59. Investors use the P/B ratio to look at a stock's market value versus its book value, which is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. By comparison, ZTS has a P/B of 15.07.

These are just a few of the metrics contributing to UTHR's Value grade of A and ZTS's Value grade of C.

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


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