WAT vs. A, MTD, ILMN, TECH, CRL, BRKR, BIO, PACB, LIFE, and HBIO
Should you be buying Waters stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Waters include Agilent Technologies (A), Mettler-Toledo International (MTD), Illumina (ILMN), Bio-Techne (TECH), Charles River Laboratories International (CRL), Bruker (BRKR), Bio-Rad Laboratories (BIO), Pacific Biosciences of California (PACB), aTyr Pharma (LIFE), and Harvard Bioscience (HBIO). These companies are all part of the "life sciences tools & services" industry.
Waters (NYSE:WAT) and Agilent Technologies (NYSE:A) are both large-cap medical companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their media sentiment, institutional ownership, community ranking, analyst recommendations, valuation, profitability, earnings, dividends and risk.
Waters has a net margin of 20.75% compared to Agilent Technologies' net margin of 18.84%. Waters' return on equity of 66.59% beat Agilent Technologies' return on equity.
Agilent Technologies received 425 more outperform votes than Waters when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 71.64% of users gave Agilent Technologies an outperform vote while only 54.24% of users gave Waters an outperform vote.
94.0% of Waters shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.8% of Waters shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
Waters has a beta of 0.97, indicating that its share price is 3% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Agilent Technologies has a beta of 1.07, indicating that its share price is 7% more volatile than the S&P 500.
In the previous week, Agilent Technologies had 12 more articles in the media than Waters. MarketBeat recorded 18 mentions for Agilent Technologies and 6 mentions for Waters. Waters' average media sentiment score of 0.60 beat Agilent Technologies' score of 0.59 indicating that Waters is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Waters currently has a consensus price target of $307.20, suggesting a potential upside of 2.94%. Agilent Technologies has a consensus price target of $136.50, suggesting a potential upside of 2.39%. Given Waters' higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Waters is more favorable than Agilent Technologies.
Agilent Technologies has higher revenue and earnings than Waters. Waters is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Agilent Technologies, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Summary
Waters and Agilent Technologies tied by winning 9 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding WAT 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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