Investors interested in Banks - Foreign stocks are likely familiar with The Bank of East Asia Ltd. (BKEAY) and Banco Itau (ITUB). But which of these two companies is the best option for those looking for undervalued stocks? Let's take a closer look.

There are plenty of strategies for discovering value stocks, but we have found that pairing a strong Zacks Rank with an impressive grade in the Value category of our Style Scores system produces the best returns. The proven Zacks Rank puts an emphasis on earnings estimates and estimate revisions, while our Style Scores work to identify stocks with specific traits.

Right now, The Bank of East Asia Ltd. is sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), while Banco Itau has a Zacks Rank of #4 (Sell). Investors should feel comfortable knowing that BKEAY likely has seen a stronger improvement to its earnings outlook than ITUB has recently. But this is only part of the picture for value investors.

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.

BKEAY currently has a forward P/E ratio of 6.33, while ITUB has a forward P/E of 8.24. We also note that BKEAY has a PEG ratio of 0.81. 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. ITUB currently has a PEG ratio of 1.01.

Another notable valuation metric for BKEAY is its P/B ratio of 0.26. 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, ITUB has a P/B of 1.47.

These are just a few of the metrics contributing to BKEAY's Value grade of B and ITUB's Value grade of C.

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

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The Bank of East Asia Ltd. (BKEAY) : Free Stock Analysis Report

Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. (ITUB) : Free Stock Analysis Report

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

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