Howden Joinery Group (HWDN) Competitors

Howden Joinery Group (LON:HWDN) and Diploma (LON:DPLM) are both mid-cap consumer cyclical companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, media sentiment, community ranking, earnings, dividends, profitability, analyst recommendations, valuation and risk.

Does the MarketBeat Community favor HWDN or DPLM?

Howden Joinery Group received 387 more outperform votes than Diploma when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 72.45% of users gave Howden Joinery Group an outperform vote while only 61.89% of users gave Diploma an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
Howden Joinery Group	Outperform Votes 668 72.45%	Underperform Votes 254 27.55%
Diploma	Outperform Votes 281 61.89%	Underperform Votes 173 38.11%

Do insiders and institutionals believe in HWDN or DPLM?

70.6% of Howden Joinery Group shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 81.5% of Diploma shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.5% of Howden Joinery Group shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.5% of Diploma shares are owned 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.

Do analysts recommend HWDN or DPLM?

Howden Joinery Group presently has a consensus price target of GBX 923.33, suggesting a potential upside of 14.13%. Diploma has a consensus price target of GBX 4,416.67, suggesting a potential upside of 4.61%. Given Howden Joinery Group's higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Howden Joinery Group is more favorable than Diploma.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Howden Joinery Group	0 Sell rating(s)	2 Hold rating(s)	4 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.67
Diploma	0 Sell rating(s)	1 Hold rating(s)	3 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.75

Which has better valuation and earnings, HWDN or DPLM?

Howden Joinery Group has higher revenue and earnings than Diploma. Howden Joinery Group is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Diploma, 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
Howden Joinery Group	£2.35B	1.89	£254.40M	£0.46	1,758.70
Diploma	£1.26B	4.49	£116.10M	£0.86	4,909.30

Is HWDN or DPLM a better dividend stock?

Howden Joinery Group pays an annual dividend of GBX 21 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.6%. Diploma pays an annual dividend of GBX 57 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.4%. Howden Joinery Group pays out 4,565.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Diploma pays out 6,627.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Howden Joinery Group is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Is HWDN or DPLM more profitable?

Howden Joinery Group has a net margin of 10.82% compared to Diploma's net margin of 9.25%. Howden Joinery Group's return on equity of 27.75% beat Diploma's return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Howden Joinery Group	10.82%	27.75%	10.70%
Diploma	9.25%	13.39%	8.32%

Which has more risk and volatility, HWDN or DPLM?

Howden Joinery Group has a beta of 1.07, suggesting that its stock price is 7% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Diploma has a beta of 0.75, suggesting that its stock price is 25% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Does the media refer more to HWDN or DPLM?

In the previous week, Diploma had 7 more articles in the media than Howden Joinery Group. MarketBeat recorded 11 mentions for Diploma and 4 mentions for Howden Joinery Group. Howden Joinery Group's average media sentiment score of 1.27 beat Diploma's score of 0.56 indicating that Howden Joinery Group is being referred to more favorably in the media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
Howden Joinery Group	2 Very Positive mention(s)	1 Positive mention(s)	0 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive
Diploma	5 Very Positive mention(s)	0 Positive mention(s)	1 Neutral mention(s)	1 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive

Summary

Howden Joinery Group beats Diploma on 13 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.