A Look Into Financial Services Sector Value Stocks

Understanding Value Stocks

A value stock is traditionally defined in terms of how investors in the marketplace are valuing that company's future growth prospects. Low P/E multiples are good base indicators that the company is undervalued and can most likely be labelled as a value stock.

Below is a list of notable value stocks in the financial services sector:

1. First Guaranty Bancshares FGBI - P/E: 9.03
2. Employers Holdings EIG - P/E: 9.3
3. Crescent Capital BDC CCAP - P/E: 4.79
4. Popular BPOP - P/E: 7.31
5. Markel MKL - P/E: 6.94

First Guaranty Bancshares's earnings per share for Q3 sits at 0.74, whereas in Q2, they were at 0.64. Its most recent dividend yield is at 2.79%, which has decreased by 0.47% from 3.26% in the previous quarter.

Employers Holdings has been featured as a value stock. Employers Holdings's Q3 EPS sits at 0.41, which has not changed since last quarter (Q2). The company's most recent dividend yield sits at 2.47%, which has increased by 0.06% from 2.41% last quarter.

This quarter, Crescent Capital BDC experienced a decrease in earnings per share, which was 0.53 in Q2 and is now 0.48. Popular saw an increase in earnings per share from 2.66 in Q2 to 3.09 now. Most recently, the company reported a dividend yield of 2.13%, which has decreased by 0.3% from last quarter's yield of 2.43%.

Markel has reported Q3 earnings per share at 15.09, which has decreased by 73.54% compared to Q2, which was 57.02.

The Significance: A value stock may need some time to rebound from its undervalued position. The risk of investing in a value stock is that this emergence may never materialize.