Costain Group (COST) Competitors

Pets at Home Group (LON:PETS) and Costain Group (LON:COST) are both small-cap consumer cyclical companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, media sentiment, community ranking, valuation, risk, institutional ownership, profitability, analyst recommendations and dividends.

Is PETS or COST more profitable?

Pets at Home Group has a net margin of 5.36% compared to Costain Group's net margin of 2.33%. Costain Group's return on equity of 13.56% beat Pets at Home Group's return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Pets at Home Group	5.36%	8.05%	4.66%
Costain Group	2.33%	13.56%	5.63%

Do analysts prefer PETS or COST?

Pets at Home Group currently has a consensus price target of GBX 368.33, indicating a potential upside of 59.04%. Costain Group has a consensus price target of GBX 105, indicating a potential downside of 1.61%. Given Pets at Home Group's stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts plainly believe Pets at Home Group is more favorable than Costain Group.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Pets at Home Group	0 Sell rating(s)	1 Hold rating(s)	2 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.67
Costain Group	0 Sell rating(s)	1 Hold rating(s)	0 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.00

Do institutionals & insiders have more ownership in PETS or COST?

72.8% of Pets at Home Group shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 44.7% of Costain Group shares are held by institutional investors. 1.8% of Pets at Home Group shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 6.4% of Costain 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.

Which has preferable earnings and valuation, PETS or COST?

Pets at Home Group has higher revenue and earnings than Costain Group. Costain Group is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Pets at Home Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Company	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Pets at Home Group	£1.41B	0.75	£75.43M	£16.45	14.08
Costain Group	£1.28B	0.22	£29.90M	£11.20	9.53

Does the MarketBeat Community prefer PETS or COST?

Costain Group received 31 more outperform votes than Pets at Home Group when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 84.03% of users gave Costain Group an outperform vote while only 73.47% of users gave Pets at Home Group an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
Pets at Home Group	Outperform Votes 432 73.47%	Underperform Votes 156 26.53%
Costain Group	Outperform Votes 463 84.03%	Underperform Votes 88 15.97%

Does the media refer more to PETS or COST?

In the previous week, Pets at Home Group had 4 more articles in the media than Costain Group. MarketBeat recorded 5 mentions for Pets at Home Group and 1 mentions for Costain Group. Costain Group's average media sentiment score of 0.63 beat Pets at Home Group's score of 0.35 indicating that Costain Group is being referred to more favorably in the news media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
Pets at Home Group	0 Very Positive mention(s)	2 Positive mention(s)	3 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Neutral
Costain Group	0 Very Positive mention(s)	1 Positive mention(s)	0 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive

Which has more volatility and risk, PETS or COST?

Pets at Home Group has a beta of 0.69, meaning that its share price is 31% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Costain Group has a beta of 2.64, meaning that its share price is 164% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Is PETS or COST a better dividend stock?

Pets at Home Group pays an annual dividend of GBX 13 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.6%. Costain Group pays an annual dividend of GBX 1 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.9%. Pets at Home Group pays out 79.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Costain Group pays out 8.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend.

Summary

Pets at Home Group beats Costain Group on 12 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.