Top 2 Value Stocks for October

You don’t have to look far to find news about the stock market being overvalued. 

And that widely-held consensus is correct — no matter if you’re looking at it from the perspective of Shiller CAPE or the Buffet indicator, stocks, plain and simple, are overvalued. 

So, are we headed for a crash?

Well, not necessarily — we can still go up, and it’s looking like we will — but a lot of the gains are already in the bag, so now chasing further returns involves taking on more risk. 

How do we counteract those issues? We focus on valuations.

The trick, however, is that valuations are no simple matter, and they don’t exist in a vacuum. A lot of investors fall into the trap of doing surface-level analysis and calling it a day. 

Plenty of stocks are trading at low P/E ratios because of very justified reasons — earnings misses, shrinking market share, what have you. These stocks will only sink lower in time. 

Instead our goal is to seek healthy growing companies that are trading for less than fair value. The best place to start that search is our…

Value Stock Strategy

Zen Ratings, our proven quant rating system, offers investors a leg up when it comes to separating the wheat from the chaff in the stock market.

When evaluating stocks, the system uses 115 unique proprietary factors that covers growth prospects, value, momentum, sentiment, financials, and even the insight of exclusive AI Factors which is a neural network trained on two decades of market data.

The result? Investors get a simple, easy-to-navigate overview of the stocks that have the best odds of producing superior returns.

Roughly 230 stocks fall into the top 5% of our analysis, and are given a Zen Rating of A (Strong Buy).

That narrows down the search significantly — but analyzing 230 stocks to find the ones that are a match for your outlook and strategy is still a tall order. Unless, of course, you direct your attention to our Zen Strategies…

Each of these 11 highly optimized and fine-tuned portfolios consists of 7 stocks, which have been rigorously selected to provide market-beating gains.

So, how much of a difference are we talking about here? 

A portfolio of value stocks that delivered a +68.67% return in 2024 and an even better +101.13% gain in 2021. This kind of consistent outperformance is what you can expect from our exclusive Value Strategy.

Here are 2 of my favorite stocks in the Value Strategy now…

Criteo (CRTO)

Criteo helps brands sell ad space and helps advertisers bid on targeted ads, and has a star-studded list of clients, including the likes of Costco and Uber. The company recently announced another blockbuster partnership— as Google’s first on-site retail media partner. CRTO shares have a Zen Rating of A and rank in the top 4% of the stocks that we track.

Let’s get right down to the meat of the matter — CRTO is trading at a P/E of 8.59x and a PEG of just 0.5x. Per our Value Component Grade rating, which covers all the bases by taking into account 21 factors, it ranks in the top 1%. This is even more impressive on account of the fact that the company has notched 10 earnings beats in a row.

Wall Street’s average forecast implies a whopping 81.49% upside — and the stock ranks in the top 22% when it comes to Growth. If things keep going the way they are, it’s only a matter of time before the markets recognize CRTO’s potential. Getting in on it now might be the wisest course of action — the next earnings call is on October 29, and could ignite a rally.

Embecta (EMBC)

Embecta is a small-cap medical device company focused on diabetes.EMBC is the top-rated stock in the Medical industry, has rallied by 18.44% in the past 6 months, and is currently ranked 6th overall out of the more than 4,600 stocks that we track.

CRTO’s 10-quarter earnings beat streak is great — Embecta’s an 11-quarter beat streak is even better. Once again, despite the hot hand, the stock is trading at a PE of 15.91x and PEG of 0.32x. Embecta’s earnings are forecast to grow at a rate of 50.21% per year — handily outpacing the wider market and industry averages. In terms of Growth, EMBC ranks in the top 4% 

We’re also dealing with a strong balance sheet — the business has recently accomplished three major milestones by finishing a restructuring plan, a debt reduction plan, and a multi-year brand transition — and with that out of the way, EMBC ranks in the top 3% in terms of Financials.

In spite of what we’ve mentioned, this one has gone under the radar. Only two analysts track EMBC — the latest bit of coverage, from BTIG’s Marie Thibault (a top 15% rated analyst), calls for 74.58% upside. Rotations saw healthcare become last week’s best-performing sector (by far) — so if you want to get in on this one for cheap, the window could close fast.

Interested In More Great Stock Picks?

The 2 stocks highlighted above are just a fraction of what you get from our proven Value strategy. 

That’s because each day our system recalibrates — and Zen Strategies members get access to the 7 top Income stocks based on 115 different factors. 

See all Top 7 Value stocks here > 

However, maybe value stocks are not your thing. Perhaps you would like to see all 11 of our market beating strategies. 

Everything from growth to momentum to income. Large caps and small caps too. Even our top performing AI Factor model. 

Each one has been curated to generate market beating performance by narrowing down to just the top 7 stocks. 

You can explore the Zen Strategies service yourself here. 

Or better yet, let 45 year investment veteran Steve Reitmeister share with you all the insights on this service in this vital video that very much lives up to its name: 

10 Minutes a Month to Beat the Market > 

Want to get in touch? Email us at news@wallstreetzen.com.