Wingstop (NASDAQ:WING) and GEN Restaurant Group (NASDAQ:GENK) Head to Head Analysis

Wingstop (NASDAQ:WING) and GEN Restaurant Group (NASDAQ:GENK) are both retail/wholesale companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, analyst recommendations, profitability, institutional ownership, valuation, earnings and dividends.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Wingstop and GEN Restaurant Group”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Wingstop	$625.81 million	11.07	$108.72 million	$6.14	40.61
GEN Restaurant Group	$208.38 million	0.38	$590,000.00	($0.26)	-9.27

Wingstop has higher revenue and earnings than GEN Restaurant Group. GEN Restaurant Group is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Wingstop, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

10.2% of GEN Restaurant Group shares are held by institutional investors. 0.7% of Wingstop shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 59.1% of GEN Restaurant Group shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Volatility & Risk

Wingstop has a beta of 1.75, meaning that its share price is 75% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, GEN Restaurant Group has a beta of 1.43, meaning that its share price is 43% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and price targets for Wingstop and GEN Restaurant Group, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Wingstop	1	5	22	5	2.94
GEN Restaurant Group	1	0	1	0	2.00

Wingstop presently has a consensus target price of $335.96, indicating a potential upside of 34.74%. GEN Restaurant Group has a consensus target price of $8.00, indicating a potential upside of 231.95%. Given GEN Restaurant Group’s higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe GEN Restaurant Group is more favorable than Wingstop.

Profitability

This table compares Wingstop and GEN Restaurant Group’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Wingstop	25.51%	-16.17%	15.81%
GEN Restaurant Group	-0.61%	0.51%	0.09%

Summary

Wingstop beats GEN Restaurant Group on 11 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Wingstop

Wingstop Inc., together with its subsidiaries, franchises and operates restaurants under the Wingstop brand. Its restaurants offer classic wings, boneless wings, tenders, and hand-sauced-and-tossed in various flavors, as well as chicken sandwiches with fries and hand-cut carrots and celery that are cooked-to-order. The company was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Addison, Texas.

About GEN Restaurant Group

GEN Restaurant Group, Inc. operates restaurants in California, Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada, Texas, New York, and Florida. It offers meats, poultry, and seafood. The company was founded in 2011 and is based in Cerritos, California.