FAST vs. GWW, URI, TSCO, WSO, WCC, AIT, BECN, AL, MSM, and GATX
Should you be buying Fastenal stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Fastenal include W.W. Grainger (GWW), United Rentals (URI), Tractor Supply (TSCO), Watsco (WSO), WESCO International (WCC), Applied Industrial Technologies (AIT), Beacon Roofing Supply (BECN), Air Lease (AL), MSC Industrial Direct (MSM), and GATX (GATX).
W.W. Grainger (NYSE:GWW) and Fastenal (NASDAQ:FAST) are both large-cap industrial products companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, institutional ownership, valuation, risk, analyst recommendations, media sentiment, earnings, community ranking and dividends.
W.W. Grainger presently has a consensus price target of $959.44, suggesting a potential upside of 7.53%. Fastenal has a consensus price target of $67.33, suggesting a potential upside of 5.39%. Given Fastenal's higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe W.W. Grainger is more favorable than Fastenal.
Fastenal has a net margin of 15.68% compared to Fastenal's net margin of 10.94%. Fastenal's return on equity of 54.31% beat W.W. Grainger's return on equity.
W.W. Grainger received 125 more outperform votes than Fastenal when rated by MarketBeat users. However, 54.50% of users gave Fastenal an outperform vote while only 54.03% of users gave W.W. Grainger an outperform vote.
W.W. Grainger has higher revenue and earnings than Fastenal. W.W. Grainger is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Fastenal, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
W.W. Grainger pays an annual dividend of $8.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.9%. Fastenal pays an annual dividend of $1.56 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.4%. W.W. Grainger pays out 22.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Fastenal pays out 77.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. W.W. Grainger has increased its dividend for 1 consecutive years and Fastenal has increased its dividend for 1 consecutive years.
W.W. Grainger has a beta of 1.16, indicating that its share price is 16% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Fastenal has a beta of 1.02, indicating that its share price is 2% more volatile than the S&P 500.
In the previous week, Fastenal had 8 more articles in the media than W.W. Grainger. MarketBeat recorded 15 mentions for Fastenal and 7 mentions for W.W. Grainger. Fastenal's average media sentiment score of 1.58 beat W.W. Grainger's score of 0.94 indicating that W.W. Grainger is being referred to more favorably in the media.
80.7% of W.W. Grainger shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 81.4% of Fastenal shares are owned by institutional investors. 9.5% of W.W. Grainger shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.4% of Fastenal shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
Summary
W.W. Grainger beats Fastenal 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 FAST 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 NASDAQ 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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