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.

Benzinga Insights has compiled a list of value stocks in the basic materials sector that may be worth watching:

1. Boise Cascade BCC - P/E: 3.32
2. Alpha Metallurgical AMR - P/E: 2.49
3. Ascent Industries ACNT - P/E: 3.91
4. Fury Gold Mines FURY - P/E: 2.18
5. Olympic Steel ZEUS - P/E: 2.15

Boise Cascade saw a decrease in earnings per share from 7.61 in Q1 to $5.49 now. The company's most recent dividend yield sits at 0.93%, which has increased by 0.2% from 0.73% last quarter.

This quarter, Alpha Metallurgical experienced an increase in earnings per share, which was $20.52 in Q1 and is now $30.03. Its most recent dividend yield is at 1.18%, which has increased by 0.26% from 0.92% in the previous quarter.

Ascent Industries has reported Q2 earnings per share at $1.06, which has increased by 7.07% compared to Q1, which was 0.99. Fury Gold Mines's earnings per share for Q2 sits at $-0.04, whereas in Q1, they were at -0.37. Olympic Steel saw an increase in earnings per share from 3.1 in Q1 to $3.26 now. Most recently, the company reported a dividend yield of 1.2%, which has increased by 0.2% from last quarter's yield of 1.0%.

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.