MSM vs. WSO, WCC, AIT, BECN, AL, GATX, RUSHA, HEES, MRC, and BXC
Should you be buying MSC Industrial Direct stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of MSC Industrial Direct include Watsco (WSO), WESCO International (WCC), Applied Industrial Technologies (AIT), Beacon Roofing Supply (BECN), Air Lease (AL), GATX (GATX), Rush Enterprises (RUSHA), H&E Equipment Services (HEES), MRC Global (MRC), and BlueLinx (BXC). These companies are all part of the "trading companies & distributors" industry.
Watsco (NYSE:WSO) and MSC Industrial Direct (NYSE:MSM) are both construction companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, dividends, media sentiment, earnings, risk, community ranking, valuation, institutional ownership and profitability.
MSC Industrial Direct has a net margin of 7.89% compared to MSC Industrial Direct's net margin of 7.03%. Watsco's return on equity of 22.58% beat MSC Industrial Direct's return on equity.
Watsco currently has a consensus target price of $404.25, indicating a potential downside of 14.88%. MSC Industrial Direct has a consensus target price of $104.00, indicating a potential upside of 21.07%. Given Watsco's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe MSC Industrial Direct is more favorable than Watsco.
89.7% of Watsco shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 79.3% of MSC Industrial Direct shares are owned by institutional investors. 12.9% of Watsco shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 18.8% of MSC Industrial Direct shares are owned by 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.
Watsco has higher revenue and earnings than MSC Industrial Direct. MSC Industrial Direct is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Watsco, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
In the previous week, MSC Industrial Direct had 8 more articles in the media than Watsco. MarketBeat recorded 14 mentions for MSC Industrial Direct and 6 mentions for Watsco. MSC Industrial Direct's average media sentiment score of 1.09 beat Watsco's score of -0.36 indicating that Watsco is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Watsco pays an annual dividend of $10.80 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.3%. MSC Industrial Direct pays an annual dividend of $3.32 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.9%. 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. MSC Industrial Direct pays out 59.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Watsco has increased its dividend for 11 consecutive years and MSC Industrial Direct has increased its dividend for 2 consecutive years. MSC Industrial Direct is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
MSC Industrial Direct received 67 more outperform votes than Watsco when rated by MarketBeat users. However, 55.46% of users gave Watsco an outperform vote while only 53.07% of users gave MSC Industrial Direct an outperform vote.
Watsco has a beta of 0.86, meaning that its stock price is 14% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, MSC Industrial Direct has a beta of 0.96, meaning that its stock price is 4% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Summary
MSC Industrial Direct beats Watsco 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 MSM 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 NYSE 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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