Are Investors Undervaluing El Pollo Loco (LOCO) Right Now?
While the proven Zacks Rank places an emphasis on earnings estimates and estimate revisions to find strong stocks, we also know that investors tend to develop their own individual strategies. With this in mind, we are always looking at value, growth, and momentum trends to discover great companies.
Of these, perhaps no stock market trend is more popular than value investing, which is a strategy that has proven to be successful in all sorts of market environments. Value investors rely on traditional forms of analysis on key valuation metrics to find stocks that they believe are undervalued, leaving room for profits.
Luckily, Zacks has developed its own Style Scores system in an effort to find stocks with specific traits. Value investors will be interested in the system's "Value" category. Stocks with both "A" grades in the Value category and high Zacks Ranks are among the strongest value stocks on the market right now.
El Pollo Loco (LOCO) is a stock many investors are watching right now. LOCO is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), as well as a Value grade of A. The stock is trading with P/E ratio of 15.73 right now. For comparison, its industry sports an average P/E of 24.96. Over the past year, LOCO's Forward P/E has been as high as 16.11 and as low as 9.75, with a median of 12.94.
Value investors also use the P/S ratio. The P/S ratio is is calculated as price divided by 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. LOCO has a P/S ratio of 0.86. This compares to its industry's average P/S of 0.92.
Finally, investors should note that LOCO has a P/CF ratio of 9.66. This data point considers a firm's operating cash flow and is frequently used to find companies that are undervalued when considering their solid cash outlook. This company's current P/CF looks solid when compared to its industry's average P/CF of 21.90. Over the past 52 weeks, LOCO's P/CF has been as high as 9.81 and as low as 6.06, with a median of 7.12.
Value investors will likely look at more than just these metrics, but the above data helps show that El Pollo Loco is likely undervalued currently. And when considering the strength of its earnings outlook, LOCO sticks out at as one of the market's strongest value stocks.
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El Pollo Loco Holdings, Inc. (LOCO) : Free Stock Analysis Report