Investors with an interest in Banks - Foreign stocks have likely encountered both National Bank of Canada (NTIOF) and Commonwealth Bank of Australia Sponsored ADR (CMWAY). 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.

We have found that the best way to discover great value opportunities is to pair a strong Zacks Rank with a great grade in the Value category of our Style Scores system. The proven Zacks Rank emphasizes companies with positive estimate revision trends, and our Style Scores highlight stocks with specific traits.

Right now, National Bank of Canada is sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), while Commonwealth Bank of Australia Sponsored ADR has a Zacks Rank of #4 (Sell). This system places an emphasis on companies that have seen positive earnings estimate revisions, so investors should feel comfortable knowing that NTIOF is likely seeing its earnings outlook improve to a greater extent. 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.

NTIOF currently has a forward P/E ratio of 16.21, while CMWAY has a forward P/E of 28.03. We also note that NTIOF has a PEG ratio of 1.36. 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. CMWAY currently has a PEG ratio of 5.27.

Another notable valuation metric for NTIOF is its P/B ratio of 2.6. 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, CMWAY has a P/B of 4.25.

These are just a few of the metrics contributing to NTIOF's Value grade of B and CMWAY's Value grade of F.

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

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National Bank of Canada (NTIOF):Free Stock Analysis Report

Commonwealth Bank of Australia Sponsored ADR (CMWAY):Free Stock Analysis Report

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

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