Nomad Foods (NYSE:NOMD) and Flowers Foods (NYSE:FLO) are both mid-cap consumer staples companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, profitability, risk, valuation, earnings, institutional ownership and dividends.
Risk and Volatility
Nomad Foods has a beta of 0.71, meaning that its stock price is 29% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Flowers Foods has a beta of 0.34, meaning that its stock price is 66% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Profitability
This table compares Nomad Foods and Flowers Foods' net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets |
---|
Nomad Foods | 8.56% | 10.37% | 4.38% |
Flowers Foods | 2.30% | 19.41% | 7.65% |
Analyst Recommendations
This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Nomad Foods and Flowers Foods, as reported by MarketBeat.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score |
---|
Nomad Foods | 0 | 1 | 8 | 0 | 2.89 |
Flowers Foods | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 2.00 |
Nomad Foods presently has a consensus price target of $27.6250, suggesting a potential upside of 11.84%. Flowers Foods has a consensus price target of $24.00, suggesting a potential upside of 7.14%. Given Nomad Foods' stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Nomad Foods is more favorable than Flowers Foods.
Valuation & Earnings
This table compares Nomad Foods and Flowers Foods' gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio |
---|
Nomad Foods | $2.60 billion | 1.63 | $172.48 million | $1.38 | 17.90 |
Flowers Foods | $4.12 billion | 1.15 | $164.54 million | $0.96 | 23.33 |
Nomad Foods has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Flowers Foods. Nomad Foods is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Flowers Foods, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Institutional and Insider Ownership
67.8% of Nomad Foods shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 64.5% of Flowers Foods shares are held by institutional investors. 8.2% of Flowers Foods shares are held 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.
Summary
Nomad Foods beats Flowers Foods on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.