Published on 22 Apr 2024 on Zacks via Yahoo Finance

5 Value Stocks With Exciting EV-to-EBITDA Ratios to Snap Up

The price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple enjoys wide-scale popularity among investors seeking stocks trading at a bargain. In addition to being a widely used tool for screening stocks, P/E is a popular metric for working out the fair market value of a firm. But even this ubiquitously used valuation multiple has a few limitations.Although P/E is the most popular valuation metric, a more complicated multiple called EV-to-EBITDA works even better. Often considered a better alternative to P/E, it gives the true picture of a company’s valuation and earnings potential, and has a more complete approach to valuation. While P/E considers a firm’s equity portion, EV-to-EBITDA determines its total value.KB Home KBH, American Vanguard Corporation AVD, Navios Maritime Partners L.P. NMM, Signet Jewelers Limited SIG and Portland General Electric Company POR are some stocks with attractive EV-to-EBITDA ratios.

Is EV-to-EBITDA a Better Substitute to P/E?

EV-to-EBITDA is essentially the enterprise value (EV) of a stock divided by its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA). EV is the sum of a company’s market capitalization, its debt and preferred stock minus cash and cash equivalents.EBITDA, the other component of the multiple, gives a better idea of a company’s profitability as it removes the impact of non-cash expenses like depreciation and amortization that reduce net earnings. It is also often used as a proxy for cash flows.Just like P/E, the lower the EV-to-EBITDA ratio, the more attractive it is. A low EV-to-EBITDA ratio could signal that a stock is potentially undervalued.  EV-to-EBITDA takes into account the debt on a company’s balance sheet that the P/E ratio does not. Due to this reason, EV-to-EBITDA is generally used to value the potential acquisition targets as it shows the amount of debt the acquirer has to assume. Stocks boasting a low EV-to-EBITDA multiple could be seen as attractive takeover candidates.Another shortcoming of P/E is that it can’t be used to value a loss-making firm. A company’s earnings are also subject to accounting estimates and management manipulation. On the other hand, EV-to-EBITDA is difficult to manipulate and can also be used to value loss-making but EBITDA-positive companies.EV-to-EBITDA is also a useful tool in measuring the value of firms that are highly leveraged and have a high degree of depreciation. Moreover, it can be used to compare companies with different levels of debt.However, EV-to-EBITDA is not devoid of shortcomings and alone cannot conclusively determine a stock’s inherent potential and future performance. The multiple varies across industries and is usually not appropriate while comparing stocks in different industries, given their diverse capital expenditure requirements.A strategy solely based on EV-to-EBITDA might not yield the desired results. However, you can club it with the other major ratios in your stock-investing toolbox, such as price-to-book (P/B), P/E and price-to-sales (P/S) to screen value stocks.