Investors interested in stocks from the Oil and Gas - Refining and Marketing sector have probably already heard of Equinor (EQNR) and Phillips 66 (PSX). 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.

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

Equinor has a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), while Phillips 66 has a Zacks Rank of #5 (Strong Sell) right now. This means that EQNR'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 try to analyze a wide range of traditional figures and metrics to help determine whether a company is undervalued at its 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.

EQNR currently has a forward P/E ratio of 7.13, while PSX has a forward P/E of 18.47. We also note that EQNR has a PEG ratio of 0.61. This popular figure is similar to the widely-used P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also considers a company's expected EPS growth rate. PSX currently has a PEG ratio of 4.62.

Another notable valuation metric for EQNR is its P/B ratio of 1.54. 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, PSX has a P/B of 1.74.

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

EQNR stands above PSX thanks to its solid earnings outlook, and based on these valuation figures, we also feel that EQNR is the superior value option right now.

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