VSEC vs. WLDN, ASPN, NX, BXC, HOV, BZH, LOMA, AGX, JELD, and USLM
Should you be buying VSE stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of VSE include Willdan Group (WLDN), Aspen Aerogels (ASPN), Quanex Building Products (NX), BlueLinx (BXC), Hovnanian Enterprises (HOV), Beazer Homes USA (BZH), Loma Negra Compañía Industrial Argentina Sociedad Anónima (LOMA), Argan (AGX), JELD-WEN (JELD), and United States Lime & Minerals (USLM). These companies are all part of the "construction" sector.
VSE (NASDAQ:VSEC) and Willdan Group (NASDAQ:WLDN) are both small-cap construction companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their media sentiment, profitability, institutional ownership, valuation, earnings, dividends, community ranking, analyst recommendations and risk.
VSE currently has a consensus price target of $87.00, indicating a potential upside of 8.82%. Willdan Group has a consensus price target of $34.50, indicating a potential upside of 4.14%. Given VSE's higher possible upside, equities analysts plainly believe VSE is more favorable than Willdan Group.
Willdan Group received 91 more outperform votes than VSE when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 65.60% of users gave Willdan Group an outperform vote while only 59.26% of users gave VSE an outperform vote.
VSE has a net margin of 4.55% compared to Willdan Group's net margin of 2.44%. Willdan Group's return on equity of 10.62% beat VSE's return on equity.
In the previous week, Willdan Group had 3 more articles in the media than VSE. MarketBeat recorded 19 mentions for Willdan Group and 16 mentions for VSE. VSE's average media sentiment score of 0.58 beat Willdan Group's score of 0.38 indicating that VSE is being referred to more favorably in the media.
VSE has a beta of 1.68, meaning that its share price is 68% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Willdan Group has a beta of 1.47, meaning that its share price is 47% more volatile than the S&P 500.
VSE has higher revenue and earnings than Willdan Group. VSE is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Willdan Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
91.5% of VSE shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 72.3% of Willdan Group shares are held by institutional investors. 14.6% of VSE shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 9.8% of Willdan Group shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
Summary
VSE beats Willdan Group on 11 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding VSEC 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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