FERG vs. WSO, WSO.B, CAT, ETN, ABBNY, DE, ITW, CTAS, PH, and EMR
Should you be buying Ferguson stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Ferguson include Watsco (WSO), Watsco (WSO.B), Caterpillar (CAT), Eaton (ETN), ABB (ABBNY), Deere & Company (DE), Illinois Tool Works (ITW), Cintas (CTAS), Parker-Hannifin (PH), and Emerson Electric (EMR).
Ferguson (NASDAQ:FERG) and Watsco (NYSE:WSO) are both large-cap industrial products companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their community ranking, valuation, profitability, institutional ownership, media sentiment, earnings, dividends, risk and analyst recommendations.
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.
Ferguson has a beta of 1.23, meaning that its stock price is 23% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Watsco has a beta of 0.88, meaning that its stock price is 12% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Watsco received 286 more outperform votes than Ferguson when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 55.46% of users gave Watsco an outperform vote while only 38.94% of users gave Ferguson an outperform vote.
Ferguson currently has a consensus target price of $199.33, suggesting a potential upside of 0.33%. Watsco has a consensus target price of $404.25, suggesting a potential downside of 12.65%. Given Ferguson's stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts plainly believe Ferguson is more favorable than Watsco.
In the previous week, Ferguson had 23 more articles in the media than Watsco. MarketBeat recorded 29 mentions for Ferguson and 6 mentions for Watsco. Watsco's average media sentiment score of 1.33 beat Ferguson's score of 0.53 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 1.6%. Watsco pays an annual dividend of $10.80 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.3%. Ferguson pays out 34.5% 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.
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 company insiders. Comparatively, 12.9% of Watsco shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
Watsco has a net margin of 7.03% compared to Ferguson's net margin of 6.33%. Ferguson's return on equity of 37.53% beat Watsco's return on equity.
Summary
Watsco beats Ferguson on 11 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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