Are Investors Undervaluing Navient (NAVI) Right Now?

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.

Looking at the history of these trends, perhaps none is more beloved than value investing. This strategy simply looks to identify companies that are being undervalued by the broader market. Value investors rely on traditional forms of analysis on key valuation metrics to find stocks that they believe are undervalued, leaving room for profits.

Zacks has developed the innovative Style Scores system to highlight stocks with specific traits. For example, value investors will be interested in stocks with great grades in the "Value" category. When paired with a high Zacks Rank, "A" grades in the Value category are among the strongest value stocks on the market today.

One company to watch right now is Navient (NAVI). NAVI is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy) and an A for Value. The stock is trading with P/E ratio of 3.31 right now. For comparison, its industry sports an average P/E of 9.56. NAVI's Forward P/E has been as high as 5.76 and as low as 1.60, with a median of 3.64, all within the past year.

Value investors also love the P/S ratio, which is calculated by simply dividing a stock's price with the company's sales. Some people prefer this metric because sales are harder to manipulate on an income statement. This means it could be a truer performance indicator. NAVI has a P/S ratio of 0.36. This compares to its industry's average P/S of 0.94.

Value investors will likely look at more than just these metrics, but the above data helps show that Navient is likely undervalued currently. And when considering the strength of its earnings outlook, NAVI sticks out at as one of the market's strongest value stocks.

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