WAT vs. A, MTD, ILMN, TECH, CRL, BRKR, BIO, PACB, HBIO, and TMO
Should you be buying Waters stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Waters include Agilent Technologies (A), Mettler-Toledo International (MTD), Illumina (ILMN), Bio-Techne (TECH), Charles River Laboratories International (CRL), Bruker (BRKR), Bio-Rad Laboratories (BIO), Pacific Biosciences of California (PACB), Harvard Bioscience (HBIO), and Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO). These companies are all part of the "life sciences tools & services" industry.
Agilent Technologies (NYSE:A) and Waters (NYSE:WAT) are both large-cap computer and technology companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, valuation, profitability, media sentiment, dividends, earnings, institutional ownership, community ranking and risk.
Agilent Technologies has higher revenue and earnings than Waters. Waters is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Agilent Technologies, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
94.0% of Waters shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.8% of Waters shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
Agilent Technologies currently has a consensus target price of $138.06, suggesting a potential upside of 0.18%. Waters has a consensus target price of $301.20, suggesting a potential downside of 5.54%. Given Waters' stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Agilent Technologies is more favorable than Waters.
Waters has a net margin of 20.75% compared to Waters' net margin of 18.84%. Agilent Technologies' return on equity of 66.59% beat Waters' return on equity.
In the previous week, Waters had 20 more articles in the media than Agilent Technologies. MarketBeat recorded 38 mentions for Waters and 18 mentions for Agilent Technologies. Waters' average media sentiment score of 0.56 beat Agilent Technologies' score of 0.18 indicating that Agilent Technologies is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Agilent Technologies received 426 more outperform votes than Waters when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 71.49% of users gave Agilent Technologies an outperform vote while only 54.10% of users gave Waters an outperform vote.
Agilent Technologies has a beta of 1.05, indicating that its share price is 5% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Waters has a beta of 0.95, indicating that its share price is 5% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Summary
Agilent Technologies beats Waters on 10 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding WAT 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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