Investors interested in Mining - Gold stocks are likely familiar with Harmony Gold (HMY) and Franco-Nevada (FNV). 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.

Both Harmony Gold and Franco-Nevada have a Zacks Rank of # 2 (Buy) right now. This system places an emphasis on companies that have seen positive earnings estimate revisions, so investors should feel comfortable knowing that these stocks have improving earnings outlooks. But this is just one piece of the puzzle for value investors.

Value investors are also interested in a number of tried-and-true valuation metrics that help show when 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.

HMY currently has a forward P/E ratio of 14.73, while FNV has a forward P/E of 42.55. We also note that HMY has a PEG ratio of 0.31. 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. FNV currently has a PEG ratio of 4.41.

Another notable valuation metric for HMY is its P/B ratio of 3.93. The P/B is a method of comparing a stock's market value to its book value, which is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. By comparison, FNV has a P/B of 5.52.

These metrics, and several others, help HMY earn a Value grade of B, while FNV has been given a Value grade of F.

Both HMY and FNV are impressive stocks with solid earnings outlooks, but based on these valuation figures, we feel that HMY is the superior value option right now.

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Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited (HMY) : Free Stock Analysis Report

Franco-Nevada Corporation (FNV) : Free Stock Analysis Report

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

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