USANA Health Sciences (NYSE:USNA) and Cronos Group (NASDAQ:CRON) are both mid-cap medical companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, dividends, risk, valuation, earnings, profitability and institutional ownership.
Volatility and Risk
USANA Health Sciences has a beta of 0.98, indicating that its share price is 2% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Cronos Group has a beta of 2.07, indicating that its share price is 107% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Profitability
This table compares USANA Health Sciences and Cronos Group's net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets |
|---|
| USANA Health Sciences | 10.57% | 32.91% | 22.26% |
| Cronos Group | 266.31% | -1.61% | -1.41% |
Institutional and Insider Ownership
54.1% of USANA Health Sciences shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 11.8% of Cronos Group shares are held by institutional investors. 45.4% of USANA Health Sciences shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 7.9% of Cronos Group shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Earnings and Valuation
This table compares USANA Health Sciences and Cronos Group's top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio |
|---|
| USANA Health Sciences | $1.06 billion | 2.01 | $100.53 million | $4.41 | 22.99 |
| Cronos Group | $25.64 million | 133.20 | $1.17 billion | $0.67 | 14.15 |
Cronos Group has lower revenue, but higher earnings than USANA Health Sciences. Cronos Group is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than USANA Health Sciences, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Analyst Recommendations
This is a breakdown of current ratings for USANA Health Sciences and Cronos Group, as provided by MarketBeat.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score |
|---|
| USANA Health Sciences | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3.00 |
| Cronos Group | 2 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 1.88 |
USANA Health Sciences presently has a consensus target price of $126.00, indicating a potential upside of 24.27%. Cronos Group has a consensus target price of $8.5625, indicating a potential downside of 9.68%. Given USANA Health Sciences' stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe USANA Health Sciences is more favorable than Cronos Group.
Summary
USANA Health Sciences beats Cronos Group on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.
