PRA Health Sciences (NASDAQ:PRAH) and ICON Public (NASDAQ:ICLR) are both mid-cap medical companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, institutional ownership, dividends, valuation, analyst recommendations, profitability and risk.
Profitability
This table compares PRA Health Sciences and ICON Public's net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets |
---|
PRA Health Sciences | 7.09% | 22.21% | 7.04% |
ICON Public | 11.95% | 21.42% | 11.85% |
Analyst Recommendations
This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for PRA Health Sciences and ICON Public, as provided by MarketBeat.com.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score |
---|
PRA Health Sciences | 1 | 6 | 4 | 0 | 2.27 |
ICON Public | 0 | 7 | 5 | 0 | 2.42 |
PRA Health Sciences presently has a consensus target price of $110.20, suggesting a potential downside of 25.24%. ICON Public has a consensus target price of $194.7273, suggesting a potential upside of 7.77%. Given ICON Public's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe ICON Public is more favorable than PRA Health Sciences.
Insider & Institutional Ownership
96.1% of PRA Health Sciences shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 81.7% of ICON Public shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.3% of PRA Health Sciences shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 44.0% of ICON Public shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Risk and Volatility
PRA Health Sciences has a beta of 1.24, meaning that its stock price is 24% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, ICON Public has a beta of 0.91, meaning that its stock price is 9% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Valuation and Earnings
This table compares PRA Health Sciences and ICON Public's revenue, earnings per share and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio |
---|
PRA Health Sciences | $3.07 billion | 3.08 | $243.02 million | $4.80 | 30.71 |
ICON Public | $2.81 billion | 3.45 | $373.99 million | $6.88 | 26.26 |
ICON Public has lower revenue, but higher earnings than PRA Health Sciences. ICON Public is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than PRA Health Sciences, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Summary
ICON Public beats PRA Health Sciences on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.