WAT vs. ILMN, BIO, AVTR, RVTY, BIO.B, ARGX, ALGN, BNTX, MOH, and GMAB
Should you be buying Waters stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Waters include Illumina (ILMN), Bio-Rad Laboratories (BIO), Avantor (AVTR), Revvity (RVTY), Bio-Rad Laboratories (BIO.B), argenx (ARGX), Align Technology (ALGN), BioNTech (BNTX), Molina Healthcare (MOH), and Genmab A/S (GMAB). These companies are all part of the "medical" sector.
Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) and Waters (NYSE:WAT) are both large-cap medical companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, earnings, risk, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, dividends, media sentiment, valuation and community ranking.
In the previous week, Waters had 45 more articles in the media than Illumina. MarketBeat recorded 59 mentions for Waters and 14 mentions for Illumina. Waters' average media sentiment score of 0.79 beat Illumina's score of 0.13 indicating that Illumina is being referred to more favorably in the media.
89.4% of Illumina shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 94.0% of Waters shares are held by institutional investors. 0.2% of Illumina shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.8% of Waters shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
Waters has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Illumina. Illumina is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Waters, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Illumina has a beta of 1.2, suggesting that its share price is 20% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Waters has a beta of 0.98, suggesting that its share price is 2% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Illumina presently has a consensus price target of $164.65, indicating a potential upside of 48.24%. Waters has a consensus price target of $305.78, indicating a potential downside of 14.10%. Given Waters' stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Illumina is more favorable than Waters.
Illumina received 650 more outperform votes than Waters when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 65.71% of users gave Illumina an outperform vote while only 54.30% of users gave Waters an outperform vote.
Waters has a net margin of 20.75% compared to Waters' net margin of -28.71%. Illumina's return on equity of 66.59% beat Waters' return on equity.
Summary
Waters beats Illumina 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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