Investors interested in Medical - Drugs stocks are likely familiar with Merck KGaA (MKKGY) and Stevanato Group (STVN). 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.

Both Merck KGaA and Stevanato Group have a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy) right now. Investors should feel comfortable knowing that both of these stocks have an improving earnings outlook since the Zacks Rank favors companies that have witnessed positive analyst estimate revisions. But this is just one factor that value investors are interested in.

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.

MKKGY currently has a forward P/E ratio of 13.54, while STVN has a forward P/E of 49.21. We also note that MKKGY has a PEG ratio of 2.13. 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. STVN currently has a PEG ratio of 2.80.

Another notable valuation metric for MKKGY is its P/B ratio of 0.55. The P/B ratio pits a stock's market value against its book value, which is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. For comparison, STVN has a P/B of 5.67.

Based on these metrics and many more, MKKGY holds a Value grade of A, while STVN has a Value grade of C.

Both MKKGY and STVN are impressive stocks with solid earnings outlooks, but based on these valuation figures, we feel that MKKGY is the superior value option right now.

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Merck KGaA (MKKGY):Free Stock Analysis Report

Stevanato Group S.p.A. (STVN):Free Stock Analysis Report

This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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