Is Prudential expensive at 1454p?

Prudential (LON:PRU) is a £38,478m in the Life & Health Insurance industry. Its insurance operations include Asia, the United States (Jackson National Life Insurance Company (Jackson)) and the United Kingdom, while its asset management operations include Eastspring Investments, M&G and Prudential Capital.

Right now the Prudential share price is on the expensive side from a factor perspective, based on its Value Rank of 37. Let's see why this is.

A closer look at Prudential's Value Rank

We can see by using Prudential’s StockReport that the group has a:

• Rolling price to book value of 1.96,
• Trailing twelve month price to earnings ratio of 21.4
• Trailing twelve month price to free cashflow of 60.2
• Rolling dividend yield of 3.48%
• Trailing twelve-month price to sales ratio of 0.75

This combination of financial traits suggests that Prudential stock is toward the more expensive end of the market. Being expensive is not the end of the world, of course - but it does help to have favourable exposures to other factors to justify the share price premium.

What does this mean for potential investors?

Some of the best quality stocks in the market have defensible models that can deliver high levels of shareholder returns over the long term. But there are no guarantees and it's important to do your own research. Indeed, we've identified some areas of concern with Prudential that you can find out about here.