Graham's Value Play in Materials: 5 Stocks Scoring 71% on Fundamentals (Nov 2025)

Benjamin Graham’s deep value framework continues to identify compelling opportunities in the materials sector. According to Validea’s analysis based on Graham’s published investment principles, five stocks recently earned a solid 71% rating—signaling that the strategy sees legitimate potential despite some valuation concerns.

Understanding the 71% Score

Before diving into individual stocks, it’s worth clarifying what a 71% rating means in Graham’s framework. Scores of 80% or above suggest the strategy has meaningful interest, while 90%+ indicates strong conviction. A 71% sits in the “watch and evaluate” zone—the stock passes the basic value screen but hasn’t checked all the boxes. These are names where Graham’s low P/B and P/E filters find traction, even if earnings growth or valuation multiples raise some red flags.

Steel & Metals: Three Names in Focus

Nucor Corp (NUE) and Steel Dynamics Inc (STLD) both operate in the Iron & Steel space and share similar profiles as large-cap growth plays. Both pass the sector, sales, current ratio, and debt-to-asset tests, yet both fail on P/E and Price/Book ratios—suggesting they’re trading above their tangible book value despite solid operational metrics.

Ryerson Holding Corp (RYI), a smaller steel distributor, takes a different angle. The company specializes in processing and distributing stainless steel tags, carbon steel, stainless steel, alloy steels, aluminum, and specialty metals across North America and China. Unlike its larger peers, Ryerson passes the Price/Book screen but stumbles on current ratio and long-term earnings growth—a signal that the market values its assets but questions near-term liquidity and trajectory.

Advanced Materials & Mining

Materion Corp (MTRN) operates as a mid-cap player in construction supplies and fixtures, producing advanced engineered beryllium alloys, electronic materials, and precision optics for semiconductor and aerospace applications. The company passes most fundamental tests but fails on P/E and Price/Book—similar tension to the steel peers.

Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd (AEM), the large-cap gold miner with operations spanning Canada, Australia, Finland, and Mexico, mirrors this pattern. Strong fundamentals on sector quality, sales growth, debt management, and long-term EPS expansion are undermined by elevated valuation multiples.

What Graham’s Screen Reveals

The pattern across all five stocks is revealing: these businesses have solid underlying metrics—manageable debt, reasonable sales growth, acceptable sector profiles—but none are trading at the deep discounts Graham ideally sought. The P/E and Price/Book failures suggest the market has already priced in much of the value story.

For investors following Graham’s approach today, these 71% scorers represent a middle ground: fundamentally sound businesses that lack the margin-of-safety Graham demanded. They’re candidates for deeper due diligence, but perhaps not the slam-dunk opportunities his strategy historically preferred.

Bottom Line: The materials sector continues to attract value-oriented screens, but finding true Graham-style bargains requires looking beyond these moderately-scored names or waiting for further multiple compression.