Investors with an interest in Steel - Producers stocks have likely encountered both ArcelorMittal (MT) and United States Steel (X). But which of these two stocks is more attractive to value investors? We'll need to take a closer look to find out.

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 Zacks Rank favors stocks with strong earnings estimate revision trends, and our Style Scores highlight companies with specific traits.

Right now, ArcelorMittal is sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), while United States Steel has a Zacks Rank of #5 (Strong Sell). This system places an emphasis on companies that have seen positive earnings estimate revisions, so investors should feel comfortable knowing that MT 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 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.

MT currently has a forward P/E ratio of 8.14, while X has a forward P/E of 21.83. We also note that MT has a PEG ratio of 0.15. 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. X currently has a PEG ratio of 1.27.

Another notable valuation metric for MT is its P/B ratio of 0.48. 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, X has a P/B of 0.74.

These are just a few of the metrics contributing to MT's Value grade of A and X's Value grade of D.

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

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ArcelorMittal (MT) : Free Stock Analysis Report

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

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