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21 June
CRAI or IT: Which Is the Better Value Stock Right Now?

Investors looking for stocks in the Consulting Services sector might want to consider either CRA International (CRAI) or Gartner (IT). But which of these two stocks is more attractive to value investors? We'll need to take a closer look to find out.

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.

CRA International has a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), while Gartner has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) right now. This means that CRAI's earnings estimate revision activity has been more impressive, so investors should feel comfortable with its improving analyst outlook. But this is just one factor that value investors are interested in.

Value investors analyze a variety of traditional, tried-and-true metrics to help find companies 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.

CRAI currently has a forward P/E ratio of 28.24, while IT has a forward P/E of 39.01. We also note that CRAI has a PEG ratio of 1.77. 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. IT currently has a PEG ratio of 3.94.

Another notable valuation metric for CRAI is its P/B ratio of 5.71. The P/B is a method of comparing a stock's market value to its book value, which is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. By comparison, IT has a P/B of 48.69.

These are just a few of the metrics contributing to CRAI's Value grade of B and IT's Value grade of D.

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

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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.