WSO.B vs. FERG, WSO, CRH, DHI, URI, LEN, PWR, OTIS, MLM, and HWM
Should you be buying Watsco stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Watsco include Ferguson (FERG), Watsco (WSO), CRH (CRH), D.R. Horton (DHI), United Rentals (URI), Lennar (LEN), Quanta Services (PWR), Otis Worldwide (OTIS), Martin Marietta Materials (MLM), and Howmet Aerospace (HWM).
Ferguson (NASDAQ:FERG) and Watsco (NYSE:WSO.B) are both large-cap industrial products companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, community ranking, dividends, risk, institutional ownership, valuation, profitability, media sentiment and analyst recommendations.
In the previous week, Ferguson had 22 more articles in the media than Watsco. MarketBeat recorded 26 mentions for Ferguson and 4 mentions for Watsco. Watsco's average media sentiment score of 0.50 beat Ferguson's score of 0.20 indicating that Ferguson is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Ferguson has higher revenue and earnings than Watsco. Ferguson is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Watsco, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
82.0% of Ferguson shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 0.1% of Watsco shares are held by institutional investors. 0.2% of Ferguson shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 13.8% of Watsco shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
Watsco received 57 more outperform votes than Ferguson when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 61.11% of users gave Watsco an outperform vote while only 37.84% of users gave Ferguson an outperform vote.
Ferguson presently has a consensus target price of $166.50, suggesting a potential downside of 19.12%. Given Watsco's higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Ferguson is more favorable than Watsco.
Ferguson has a beta of 1.27, indicating that its stock price is 27% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Watsco has a beta of 0.57, indicating that its stock price is 43% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Watsco has a net margin of 7.03% compared to Watsco's net margin of 6.00%. Watsco's return on equity of 37.99% beat Ferguson's return on equity.
Ferguson pays an annual dividend of $3.16 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.5%. Watsco pays an annual dividend of $10.80 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.4%. Ferguson pays out 36.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Watsco pays out 83.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Ferguson has increased its dividend for 1 consecutive years.
Summary
Ferguson beats Watsco on 11 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
Get Watsco News Delivered to You Automatically
Sign up to receive the latest news and ratings for WSO.B and its competitors with MarketBeat's FREE daily newsletter.
This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding WSO.B 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.
WSO.B vs. The Competition
Related Companies and Tools
