BBSI vs. PAYX: Which Stock Is the Better Value Option?
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Investors looking for stocks in the Outsourcing sector might want to consider either Barrett Business Services (BBSI) or Paychex (PAYX). 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.
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 proven Zacks Rank emphasizes companies with positive estimate revision trends, and our Style Scores highlight stocks with specific traits.
Barrett Business Services and Paychex are sporting Zacks Ranks of #2 (Buy) and #4 (Sell), respectively, right now. This means that BBSI'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.
BBSI currently has a forward P/E ratio of 18.92, while PAYX has a forward P/E of 26.71. We also note that BBSI has a PEG ratio of 1.26. 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. PAYX currently has a PEG ratio of 3.53.
Another notable valuation metric for BBSI is its P/B ratio of 4.94. 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, PAYX has a P/B of 12.61.
These are just a few of the metrics contributing to BBSI's Value grade of A and PAYX's Value grade of D.
BBSI sticks out from PAYX in both our Zacks Rank and Style Scores models, so value investors will likely feel that BBSI is the better option right now.
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Barrett Business Services, Inc. (BBSI) : Free Stock Analysis Report
Paychex, Inc. (PAYX) : Free Stock Analysis Report