MSA Safety (MSA) Competitors

MSA Safety (NYSE:MSA) and Avery Dennison (NYSE:AVY) are both industrials companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, risk, institutional ownership, community ranking, dividends, profitability, earnings, valuation and media sentiment.

Which has more risk and volatility, MSA or AVY?

MSA Safety has a beta of 0.96, suggesting that its stock price is 4% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Avery Dennison has a beta of 0.88, suggesting that its stock price is 12% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Do analysts recommend MSA or AVY?

MSA Safety currently has a consensus target price of $191.80, indicating a potential upside of 21.79%. Avery Dennison has a consensus target price of $206.60, indicating a potential upside of 14.68%. Given MSA Safety's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe MSA Safety is more favorable than Avery Dennison.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
MSA Safety	0 Sell rating(s)	2 Hold rating(s)	3 Buy rating(s)	1 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.83
Avery Dennison	0 Sell rating(s)	5 Hold rating(s)	7 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.58

Do institutionals and insiders believe in MSA or AVY?

92.5% of MSA Safety shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 94.2% of Avery Dennison shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.7% of MSA Safety shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.8% of Avery Dennison shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Is MSA or AVY a better dividend stock?

MSA Safety pays an annual dividend of $2.12 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.3%. Avery Dennison pays an annual dividend of $3.76 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.1%. MSA Safety pays out 29.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Avery Dennison pays out 43.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. MSA Safety has increased its dividend for 56 consecutive years and Avery Dennison has increased its dividend for 15 consecutive years.

Does the media refer more to MSA or AVY?

In the previous week, Avery Dennison had 8 more articles in the media than MSA Safety. MarketBeat recorded 20 mentions for Avery Dennison and 12 mentions for MSA Safety. MSA Safety's average media sentiment score of 1.34 beat Avery Dennison's score of 1.21 indicating that MSA Safety is being referred to more favorably in the media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
MSA Safety	10 Very Positive mention(s)	0 Positive mention(s)	2 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive
Avery Dennison	17 Very Positive mention(s)	1 Positive mention(s)	1 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive

Which has better earnings & valuation, MSA or AVY?

Avery Dennison has higher revenue and earnings than MSA Safety. Avery Dennison is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than MSA Safety, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Company	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
MSA Safety	$1.82B	3.41	$284.97M	$7.25	21.72
Avery Dennison	$8.75B	1.61	$704.90M	$8.68	20.75

Is MSA or AVY more profitable?

MSA Safety has a net margin of 15.76% compared to Avery Dennison's net margin of 8.05%. Avery Dennison's return on equity of 33.06% beat MSA Safety's return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
MSA Safety	15.76%	28.64%	13.74%
Avery Dennison	8.05%	33.06%	9.11%

Does the MarketBeat Community favor MSA or AVY?

Avery Dennison received 133 more outperform votes than MSA Safety when rated by MarketBeat users. However, 63.97% of users gave MSA Safety an outperform vote while only 57.50% of users gave Avery Dennison an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
MSA Safety	Outperform Votes 300 63.97%	Underperform Votes 169 36.03%
Avery Dennison	Outperform Votes 433 57.50%	Underperform Votes 320 42.50%

Summary

MSA Safety beats Avery Dennison on 12 of the 22 factors compared between the two stocks.