ABT vs. PFE, NVS, ISRG, SYK, AZN, VRTX, SNY, 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), AstraZeneca (AZN), Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX), Sanofi (SNY), Boston Scientific (BSX), Medtronic (MDT), and Becton, Dickinson and Company (BDX). These companies are all part of the "medical" sector.
Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) and Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) are both large-cap medical companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their risk, dividends, profitability, valuation, analyst recommendations, media sentiment, institutional ownership, community ranking and earnings.
68.4% of Pfizer shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 75.2% of Abbott Laboratories shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.1% of Pfizer shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 1.1% of Abbott Laboratories shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
Pfizer pays an annual dividend of $1.68 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.9%. Abbott Laboratories pays an annual dividend of $2.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.0%. Pfizer pays out -2,799.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Abbott Laboratories pays out 68.5% 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 has raised its dividend for 1 consecutive years and Abbott Laboratories has raised its dividend for 1 consecutive years. Pfizer is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
Pfizer presently has a consensus target price of $35.86, suggesting a potential upside of 25.46%. Abbott Laboratories has a consensus target price of $120.64, suggesting a potential upside of 12.14%. Given Abbott Laboratories' higher probable upside, equities analysts plainly 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 28 mentions for Pfizer and 15 mentions for Abbott Laboratories. Pfizer's average media sentiment score of 1.00 beat Abbott Laboratories' score of 0.64 indicating that Abbott Laboratories is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Abbott Laboratories has a net margin of 13.96% compared to Abbott Laboratories' net margin of -0.56%. Pfizer's return on equity of 20.18% beat Abbott Laboratories' return on equity.
Abbott Laboratories has lower revenue, but higher earnings 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.
Pfizer has a beta of 0.7, meaning that its stock price is 30% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Abbott Laboratories has a beta of 0.74, meaning that its stock price is 26% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Pfizer received 568 more outperform votes than Abbott Laboratories when rated by MarketBeat users. However, 69.67% 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 14 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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