BBVA or SAN: Which Is the Better Value Stock Right Now?

Investors interested in stocks from the Banks - Foreign sector have probably already heard of Banco Bilbao (BBVA) and Banco Santander (SAN). But which of these two stocks is more attractive to value investors? We'll need to take a closer look to find out.

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 proven Zacks Rank emphasizes companies with positive estimate revision trends, and our Style Scores highlight stocks with specific traits.

Right now, Banco Bilbao is sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), while Banco Santander has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold). This means that BBVA'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 also tend to look at a number of traditional, tried-and-true figures to help them find stocks 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.

BBVA currently has a forward P/E ratio of 6.32, while SAN has a forward P/E of 8.86. We also note that BBVA has a PEG ratio of 0.87. This metric is used similarly to the famous P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also takes into account the stock's expected earnings growth rate. SAN currently has a PEG ratio of 1.19.

Another notable valuation metric for BBVA is its P/B ratio of 0.62. 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, SAN has a P/B of 0.63.

These are just a few of the metrics contributing to BBVA's Value grade of A and SAN's Value grade of C.

BBVA sticks out from SAN in both our Zacks Rank and Style Scores models, so value investors will likely feel that BBVA is the better option right now.

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Banco Bilbao Viscaya Argentaria S.A. (BBVA) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
Banco Santander, S.A. (SAN) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
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