AZN vs. NVS, ABBV, ABT, PFE, MRK, SNY, JNJ, VRTX, REGN, and GSK
Should you be buying AstraZeneca stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of AstraZeneca include Novartis (NVS), AbbVie (ABBV), Abbott Laboratories (ABT), Pfizer (PFE), Merck & Co., Inc. (MRK), Sanofi (SNY), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX), Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (REGN), and GSK (GSK). These companies are all part of the "pharmaceutical preparations" industry.
Novartis (NYSE:NVS) and AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:AZN) are both large-cap medical companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, dividends, institutional ownership, earnings, valuation, media sentiment, profitability, community ranking and analyst recommendations.
13.1% of Novartis shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 20.4% of AstraZeneca shares are held by institutional investors. 0.0% of Novartis shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
Novartis has higher revenue and earnings than AstraZeneca. Novartis is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than AstraZeneca, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Novartis currently has a consensus target price of $115.00, indicating a potential upside of 12.12%. AstraZeneca has a consensus target price of $81.00, indicating a potential upside of 5.33%. Given AstraZeneca's higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Novartis is more favorable than AstraZeneca.
Novartis has a net margin of 31.33% compared to Novartis' net margin of 13.30%. AstraZeneca's return on equity of 32.15% beat Novartis' return on equity.
In the previous week, AstraZeneca had 14 more articles in the media than Novartis. MarketBeat recorded 21 mentions for AstraZeneca and 7 mentions for Novartis. Novartis' average media sentiment score of 0.58 beat AstraZeneca's score of 0.39 indicating that AstraZeneca is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Novartis received 473 more outperform votes than AstraZeneca when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 61.42% of users gave Novartis an outperform vote while only 58.06% of users gave AstraZeneca an outperform vote.
Novartis pays an annual dividend of $2.43 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.4%. AstraZeneca pays an annual dividend of $1.93 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.5%. Novartis pays out 32.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. AstraZeneca pays out 94.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Novartis has raised its dividend for 4 consecutive years and AstraZeneca has raised its dividend for 1 consecutive years.
Novartis has a beta of 0.53, meaning that its share price is 47% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, AstraZeneca has a beta of 0.47, meaning that its share price is 53% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Summary
Novartis beats AstraZeneca on 13 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding AZN and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
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