KAI vs. LECO, WWD, ITT, DCI, RBC, CR, WTS, MIDD, GTLS, and MLI
Should you be buying Kadant stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Kadant include Lincoln Electric (LECO), Woodward (WWD), ITT (ITT), Donaldson (DCI), RBC Bearings (RBC), Crane (CR), Watts Water Technologies (WTS), Middleby (MIDD), Chart Industries (GTLS), and Mueller Industries (MLI). These companies are all part of the "industrial machinery" industry.
Kadant (NYSE:KAI) and Lincoln Electric (NASDAQ:LECO) are both industrial products companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, media sentiment, community ranking, earnings, analyst recommendations, valuation, risk, dividends and institutional ownership.
Kadant pays an annual dividend of $1.28 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.5%. Lincoln Electric pays an annual dividend of $2.84 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.4%. Kadant pays out 13.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Lincoln Electric pays out 30.1% 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.
Lincoln Electric has a net margin of 13.23% compared to Kadant's net margin of 11.53%. Lincoln Electric's return on equity of 43.81% beat Kadant's return on equity.
Kadant has a beta of 1.3, meaning that its share price is 30% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Lincoln Electric has a beta of 1.23, meaning that its share price is 23% more volatile than the S&P 500.
96.1% of Kadant shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 79.6% of Lincoln Electric shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.4% of Kadant shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 2.6% of Lincoln Electric shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
Lincoln Electric received 131 more outperform votes than Kadant when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 59.68% of users gave Lincoln Electric an outperform vote while only 57.84% of users gave Kadant an outperform vote.
Lincoln Electric has higher revenue and earnings than Kadant. Lincoln Electric is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Kadant, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Kadant presently has a consensus price target of $360.00, indicating a potential upside of 30.57%. Lincoln Electric has a consensus price target of $225.29, indicating a potential upside of 14.39%. Given Kadant's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities analysts clearly believe Kadant is more favorable than Lincoln Electric.
In the previous week, Lincoln Electric had 17 more articles in the media than Kadant. MarketBeat recorded 19 mentions for Lincoln Electric and 2 mentions for Kadant. Kadant's average media sentiment score of 1.67 beat Lincoln Electric's score of 0.25 indicating that Kadant is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Summary
Lincoln Electric beats Kadant on 11 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding KAI 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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