ABT vs. PFE, NVS, ISRG, SYK, SNY, AZN, VRTX, BSX, MDT, and BDX
Should you be buying Abbott Laboratories stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Abbott Laboratories include Pfizer (PFE), Novartis (NVS), Intuitive Surgical (ISRG), Stryker (SYK), Sanofi (SNY), AstraZeneca (AZN), Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX), Boston Scientific (BSX), Medtronic (MDT), and Becton, Dickinson and Company (BDX). These companies are all part of the "medical" sector.
Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) and Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) are both large-cap medical companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, community ranking, institutional ownership, media sentiment, risk, valuation, dividends, profitability and analyst recommendations.
Abbott Laboratories has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Pfizer. Pfizer is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Abbott Laboratories, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Abbott Laboratories has a beta of 0.76, meaning that its share price is 24% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Pfizer has a beta of 0.63, meaning that its share price is 37% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Abbott Laboratories currently has a consensus price target of $120.64, suggesting a potential upside of 18.05%. Pfizer has a consensus price target of $35.86, suggesting a potential upside of 25.11%. Given Pfizer's higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Pfizer is more favorable than Abbott Laboratories.
In the previous week, Pfizer had 13 more articles in the media than Abbott Laboratories. MarketBeat recorded 36 mentions for Pfizer and 23 mentions for Abbott Laboratories. Pfizer's average media sentiment score of 0.70 beat Abbott Laboratories' score of 0.48 indicating that Pfizer is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
75.2% of Abbott Laboratories shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 68.4% of Pfizer shares are held by institutional investors. 1.1% of Abbott Laboratories shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.1% of Pfizer shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Abbott Laboratories has a net margin of 13.96% compared to Pfizer's net margin of -0.56%. Abbott Laboratories' return on equity of 20.18% beat Pfizer's return on equity.
Abbott Laboratories pays an annual dividend of $2.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.2%. Pfizer pays an annual dividend of $1.68 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.9%. Abbott Laboratories pays out 68.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Pfizer pays out -2,799.5% 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. Pfizer is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
Pfizer received 569 more outperform votes than Abbott Laboratories when rated by MarketBeat users. However, 69.64% of users gave Abbott Laboratories an outperform vote while only 69.06% of users gave Pfizer an outperform vote.
Summary
Abbott Laboratories beats Pfizer on 13 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding ABT 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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