10 ‘pure value' stocks favored by analysts to soar 20% to 96% over the next year
Way back on Jan. 21, we screened the S&P 500 to identify value stocks that appeared to have some characteristics of growth stocks, to help long-term investors identify potential bargains in a market that was still riding high. Now it's time to take another look at value stocks, in light of the broad decline for the market and to help investors look beyond the day-to-day turmoil.
When we ran that previous screen, the S&P 500 SPX was up 2% for 2025, following returns of 25% in 2024 and 26.3% in 2023, all with dividends reinvested. There was some concern among investors that the large-cap U.S. benchmark index was expensive. At that time, the forward price-to-earnings ratio of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY, which tracks the index by holding all of its stocks, was 21.6 — which was 9% higher than its five-year average valuation and 18% higher than its 10-year average valuation. That ratio is the exchange-traded fund's price divided by rolling consensus 12-month earnings-per-share estimates for its component stocks among analysts polled by FactSet, weighted by market capitalization.
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Through Monday, the S&P 500 was down 12% for 2025 (again, with dividends reinvested) and its forward P/E ratio had declined to 18.7, well below its five-year valuation of 20.3 and slightly above its 10-year average of 18.6.
One summary of investors' reactions this month to the day-to-day tariff announcements, and more recently to President Donald Trump's public attacks on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, came from John McClain, a bond portfolio manager at Brandywine Global, during an interview with MarketWatch on Monday: 'We have seen some vicious snapbacks. The moment we get any positive move, investors don't want to be caught offsides,' he said. 'This is a market that wants to be first, not right.'
But long-term investors might prefer to think about opportunities in this market to pay reduced prices while putting money to work for a period of years. If you are building up a retirement nest egg, isn't it better to buy stocks, or shares of equity funds, at lower prices?
On the other hand, if you are looking for a combination of growth and income, lower prices for companies with decent prospects for increasing their revenue and earnings could help you identify attractive dividend payers.
Value stocks are generally considered to be those that trade relatively low relative to earnings and that are expected to expand their businesses relatively slowly. Companies in the value camp typically pay dividends. Growth stocks tend to be more expensive relative to earnings, and the companies often don't pay dividends as they focus on expansion.
S&P Dow Jones Indices divides the S&P 500 into the S&P 500 Value Index and the S&P 500 Growth Index by scoring stocks based on various factors. Valuation metrics include book value, earnings and revenue to price, while growth metrics include trailing three-year growth rates for earnings and revenue, as well as 12-month price momentum.
But this scoring methodology leads to overlapping groups of stocks. There are 398 stocks in the S&P 500 Value Index, which is tracked by the iShares S&P 500 Value ETF IVE. There are 211 stocks in the in the S&P 500 Growth Index, which is tracked by the iShares S&P 500 Growth ETF IVW. The Value and Growth indexes are weighted by market capitalization.
Apple Inc. AAPL, for example, is the largest component of the iShares S&P 500 Value ETF, making up 7.2% of the portfolio. Apple is the third-largest component of the iShares S&P 500 Growth ETF, with a 6.1% portfolio weighting, behind Nvidia Corp. NVDA at 10.8% and Microsoft Corp. MSFT at 6.3%.
For investors who wish to avoid that value/growth overlap, S&P goes further with the S&P 500 Pure Value and Pure Growth indexes, which are weighted by S&P's value or growth scores, rather than by market cap. So these not only narrow the focus, they get away from the market-cap weighting that has reflected the dominance of Big Tech over the past several years.
And S&P's 'pure' approach is also applied to the S&P MidCap 400 Index MID and the S&P Small Cap 600 Index SML. So the following screen begins with the holdings of three Invesco exchange-traded funds that track S&P's Pure Value indexes:
So far this year, the non-cap-weighted pure-value approach has held up better than the cap-weighted value approach and the full-cap-weighted S&P 500. Again, these returns include reinvested dividends:
Together, there are 336 stocks in the three S&P Pure Value indexes. The full underlying indexes that the stocks are selected from make up the S&P Composite 1500 Index XX:SP1500. And S&P has its own selection criteria for companies initially to be included in its broad indexes, which are outlined here and include four consecutive quarters of profitability.
To screen the full group of pure value stocks for growth characteristics, we began by looking at FactSet's estimates for the S&P Composite 1500's revenue and earnings growth from 2024 through 2026. FactSet adjusts the data to match calendar years, for companies whose fiscal years don't match the calendar.
Based on the estimates, the S&P Composite 1500 is expected to show two-year compound annual growth rates of 5.5% for revenue and 12.6% for earnings per share from 2024 through 2026.
Starting with our list of 336 pure value stocks, we narrowed the group to 283 companies covered by at least five analysts polled by FactSet. Then we cut the list to 122 companies rated a buy or the equivalent by a majority of the analysts.
Among the remaining 122 companies, only 10 are expected to increase their revenue at a CAGR of at least 11% (double that expected for the S&P Composite 1500) from 2024 through 2026. We are going to list them three times in the same order.
First, here are the 10 companies that passed the screen, sorted by projected revenue CAGR through 2026:
Company
Ticker
Industry
Two-year estimated revenue CAGR through 2026
Forward P/E
EQT Corp.
EQT
Integrated Oil
32.8%
12.9
Smurfit Westrock PLC
SW
Containers/ Packaging
24.7%
12.3
Coterra Energy Inc.
CTRA
Integrated Oil
23.5%
8.1
Sonoco Products Co.
SON
Containers/ Packaging
21.4%
7.2
Diamondback Energy Inc.
FANG
Oil and Gas Production
15.1%
9.3
Encore Capital Group Inc.
ECPG
Debt Recovery/ Loan Servicing
15.1%
4.6
Bill Holdings Inc.
BILL
Software
14.4%
19.0
First American Financial Corp.
FAF
Title Insurance and Loan Servicing
13.4%
10.8
Crescent Energy Co. Class A
CRGY
Integrated Oil
12.7%
5.6
Kemper Corp.
KMPR
Property/ Casualty Insurance
11.2%
8.7
Sources: FactSet, company filings
The table includes forward P/E ratios in the rightmost column. These are Monday's closing prices divided by consensus EPS estimates for the next 12 months among analysts polled by FactSet. They are low for most of the companies when compared with the forward P/E of 18.7 for the S&P 500, 13.7 for the S&P MidCap 400 and 17.9 for the S&P Small Cap 600.
You might need to scroll the table or flip your screen to landscape to see all of the columns, depending on the device or web browser you are using.
There are four oil producers on the list, and fears of a possible recession in the wake of Trump's tariff policies have helped push front-month contracts for West Texas Crude oil CL00 down to $63.35 a barrel as of early Tuesday, from $71.72 at the end of last year.
So there has been pressure on energy stocks. But there has been 'massive discipline around spending' among U.S. oil producers, according to Nichole Hammond, who co-manages the Angel Oak High Yield Opportunities ETF AOHY. During an interview with MarketWatch on Monday, she said this discipline left the U.S. oil and natural gas industry in much better financial shape than it was in during the energy commodity price declines in 2015 and 2016.
Here is the list again, this time showing EPS for calendar 2024 with estimates for 2025 and 2026, all adjusted if necessary for companies whose fiscal years don't match the calendar. Projected two-year EPS CAGR are to the right:
Company
Ticker
2024 EPS
Est. 2025 EPS
Est. 2026 EPS
Two-year estimated EPS CAGR through 2026
EQT Corp.
EQT
$0.45
$3.27
$4.68
223.2%
Smurfit Westrock PLC
SW
$0.82
$3.10
$3.78
114.7%
Coterra Energy Inc.
CTRA
$1.50
$2.94
$3.29
47.9%
Sonoco Products Co.
SON
$1.65
$5.91
$6.42
97.1%
Diamondback Energy Inc.
FANG
$15.53
$14.25
$14.05
-4.9%
Encore Capital Group Inc.
ECPG
-$5.83
$5.93
$8.06
N/A
Bill Holdings Inc.
BILL
$0.09
$2.04
$2.44
409.9%
First American Financial Corp.
FAF
$1.26
$4.96
$6.09
120.1%
Crescent Energy Co. Class A
CRGY
-$0.88
$1.45
$1.48
N/A
Kemper Corp.
KMPR
$4.91
$6.13
$6.71
16.9%
Source: FactSet
EPS CAGR is marked 'N/A' for companies that had negative earnings in calendar 2024.
This last table includes dividend yields and consensus price targets for the group:
Company
Ticker
Dividend yield
April 22 price
Cons. price target
Implied 12-month upside potential
EQT Corp.
EQT
1.32%
$47.68
$57.44
20%
Smurfit Westrock PLC
SW
3.39%
$40.78
$56.81
39%
Coterra Energy Inc.
CTRA
3.43%
$24.81
$34.14
38%
Sonoco Products Co.
SON
4.88%
$43.44
$55.75
28%
Diamondback Energy Inc.
FANG
3.02%
$132.35
$191.68
45%
Encore Capital Group Inc.
ECPG
0.00%
$30.52
$59.75
96%
Bill Holdings Inc.
BILL
0.00%
$39.86
$75.23
89%
First American Financial Corp.
FAF
3.79%
$57.02
$76.20
34%
Crescent Energy Co. Class A
CRGY
5.93%
$8.10
$14.40
78%
Kemper Corp.
KMPR
2.32%
$55.12
$84.40
53%
Source: FactSet
Click on the tickers for more about each company
Read: Tomi Kilgore's detailed guide to the information available on the MarketWatch quote page
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Even until the rally, company executives weren't sure where the U.S. president would land, Hashimoto said during a news conference in Tokyo last week. 'The employees, including union members, asked him to approve the deal and cheered his speech,' Hashimoto said. 'That's when I thought: We're going to make it.' On June 13, Trump signed an executive order enabling the acquisition. Nippon Steel and the U.S. government reached their agreement past midnight. 'When we walked out after midnight, that's when I finally believed it was real,' Mori said. Chie Tanaka contributed to this report.
