FERG vs. WSO, WSO.B, ETN, DE, ABBNY, ITW, CTAS, PH, EMR, and JCI
Should you be buying Ferguson stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Ferguson include Watsco (WSO), Watsco (WSO.B), Eaton (ETN), Deere & Company (DE), ABB (ABBNY), Illinois Tool Works (ITW), Cintas (CTAS), Parker-Hannifin (PH), Emerson Electric (EMR), and Johnson Controls International (JCI).
Ferguson (NASDAQ:FERG) and Watsco (NYSE:WSO) are both large-cap industrial products companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, analyst recommendations, community ranking, media sentiment, institutional ownership, risk, valuation, profitability and dividends.
Ferguson has a beta of 1.27, indicating that its share price is 27% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Watsco has a beta of 0.86, indicating that its share price is 14% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Watsco received 288 more outperform votes than Ferguson when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 55.46% of users gave Watsco an outperform vote while only 37.84% of users gave Ferguson an outperform vote.
In the previous week, Ferguson had 16 more articles in the media than Watsco. MarketBeat recorded 22 mentions for Ferguson and 6 mentions for Watsco. Watsco's average media sentiment score of 1.35 beat Ferguson's score of 0.50 indicating that Watsco is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Ferguson pays an annual dividend of $3.16 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.5%. Watsco pays an annual dividend of $10.80 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.2%. Ferguson pays out 36.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Watsco pays out 83.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future.
Ferguson currently has a consensus price target of $166.50, indicating a potential downside of 18.93%. Watsco has a consensus price target of $404.25, indicating a potential downside of 16.28%. Given Watsco's higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Watsco is more favorable than Ferguson.
82.0% of Ferguson shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 89.7% of Watsco shares are held by institutional investors. 0.2% of Ferguson shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 12.9% of Watsco shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
Watsco has a net margin of 7.03% compared to Ferguson's net margin of 6.00%. Ferguson's return on equity of 37.99% beat Watsco's return on equity.
Ferguson has higher revenue and earnings than Watsco. Ferguson is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Watsco, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Summary
Watsco beats Ferguson on 12 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding FERG 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 NASDAQ 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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