MWA vs. LECO, WWD, ITT, DCI, RBC, CR, MIDD, GTLS, WTS, and MLI
Should you be buying Mueller Water Products stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Mueller Water Products include Lincoln Electric (LECO), Woodward (WWD), ITT (ITT), Donaldson (DCI), RBC Bearings (RBC), Crane (CR), Middleby (MIDD), Chart Industries (GTLS), Watts Water Technologies (WTS), and Mueller Industries (MLI). These companies are all part of the "industrial machinery" industry.
Mueller Water Products (NYSE:MWA) and Lincoln Electric (NASDAQ:LECO) are both industrial products companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, community ranking, risk, profitability, analyst recommendations, dividends, media sentiment and valuation.
Lincoln Electric has higher revenue and earnings than Mueller Water Products. Lincoln Electric is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Mueller Water Products, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
In the previous week, Lincoln Electric had 5 more articles in the media than Mueller Water Products. MarketBeat recorded 10 mentions for Lincoln Electric and 5 mentions for Mueller Water Products. Mueller Water Products' average media sentiment score of 1.04 beat Lincoln Electric's score of 0.33 indicating that Mueller Water Products is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Mueller Water Products presently has a consensus price target of $20.00, suggesting a potential upside of 7.76%. Lincoln Electric has a consensus price target of $225.29, suggesting a potential upside of 14.73%. Given Lincoln Electric's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Lincoln Electric is more favorable than Mueller Water Products.
Mueller Water Products has a beta of 1.33, suggesting that its stock price is 33% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Lincoln Electric has a beta of 1.23, suggesting that its stock price is 23% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Lincoln Electric received 7 more outperform votes than Mueller Water Products when rated by MarketBeat users. However, 66.06% of users gave Mueller Water Products an outperform vote while only 59.68% of users gave Lincoln Electric an outperform vote.
Lincoln Electric has a net margin of 13.23% compared to Mueller Water Products' net margin of 8.10%. Lincoln Electric's return on equity of 43.81% beat Mueller Water Products' return on equity.
91.7% of Mueller Water Products shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 79.6% of Lincoln Electric shares are held by institutional investors. 1.4% of Mueller Water Products shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 2.6% of Lincoln Electric shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
Mueller Water Products pays an annual dividend of $0.25 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.3%. Lincoln Electric pays an annual dividend of $2.84 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.4%. Mueller Water Products pays out 39.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Lincoln Electric pays out 30.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Lincoln Electric is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
Summary
Lincoln Electric beats Mueller Water Products on 15 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding MWA and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
This chart shows the average media sentiment of NYSE and its competitors over the past 90 days as caculated by MarketBeat. The averaged score is equivalent to the following: Very Negative Sentiment <= -1.5, Negative Sentiment > -1.5 and <= -0.5, Neutral Sentiment > -0.5 and < 0.5, Positive Sentiment >= 0.5 and < 1.5, and Very Positive Sentiment >= 1.5.
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