GWW vs. FERG, JCI, IR, XYL, EMR, ROK, DOV, AXON, CTAS, and PH
Should you be buying W.W. Grainger stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of W.W. Grainger include Ferguson (FERG), Johnson Controls International (JCI), Ingersoll Rand (IR), Xylem (XYL), Emerson Electric (EMR), Rockwell Automation (ROK), Dover (DOV), Axon Enterprise (AXON), Cintas (CTAS), and Parker-Hannifin (PH). These companies are all part of the "industrial products" sector.
W.W. Grainger (NYSE:GWW) and Ferguson (NASDAQ:FERG) are both large-cap industrial products companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, community ranking, valuation, analyst recommendations, media sentiment, dividends, profitability and risk.
80.7% of W.W. Grainger shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 82.0% of Ferguson shares are held by institutional investors. 9.5% of W.W. Grainger shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.2% of Ferguson shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
W.W. Grainger pays an annual dividend of $8.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.9%. Ferguson pays an annual dividend of $3.16 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.4%. W.W. Grainger pays out 22.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Ferguson pays out 36.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years.
W.W. Grainger currently has a consensus target price of $938.89, indicating a potential downside of 1.71%. Ferguson has a consensus target price of $166.50, indicating a potential downside of 24.69%. Given W.W. Grainger's higher possible upside, equities analysts clearly believe W.W. Grainger is more favorable than Ferguson.
Ferguson has higher revenue and earnings than W.W. Grainger. Ferguson is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than W.W. Grainger, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
W.W. Grainger has a net margin of 10.94% compared to Ferguson's net margin of 6.00%. W.W. Grainger's return on equity of 54.31% beat Ferguson's return on equity.
W.W. Grainger received 500 more outperform votes than Ferguson when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 54.15% of users gave W.W. Grainger an outperform vote while only 37.84% of users gave Ferguson an outperform vote.
W.W. Grainger has a beta of 1.18, suggesting that its stock price is 18% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Ferguson has a beta of 1.27, suggesting that its stock price is 27% more volatile than the S&P 500.
In the previous week, Ferguson had 13 more articles in the media than W.W. Grainger. MarketBeat recorded 24 mentions for Ferguson and 11 mentions for W.W. Grainger. W.W. Grainger's average media sentiment score of 1.16 beat Ferguson's score of 0.29 indicating that W.W. Grainger is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Summary
W.W. Grainger beats Ferguson on 12 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding GWW and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
Skip ChartThis 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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