Head-To-Head Review: Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ:ISRG) & Lucid Diagnostics (NASDAQ:LUCD)

Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ:ISRG) and Lucid Diagnostics (NASDAQ:LUCD) are both medical companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, valuation, dividends, earnings, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations and risk.

Risk & Volatility

Intuitive Surgical has a beta of 1.68, meaning that its stock price is 68% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Lucid Diagnostics has a beta of 1.23, meaning that its stock price is 23% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

83.6% of Intuitive Surgical shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 74.0% of Lucid Diagnostics shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.7% of Intuitive Surgical shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 6.8% of Lucid Diagnostics shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Intuitive Surgical and Lucid Diagnostics, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Intuitive Surgical	1	8	16	2	2.70
Lucid Diagnostics	1	0	4	0	2.60

Intuitive Surgical currently has a consensus price target of $611.08, suggesting a potential upside of 6.51%. Lucid Diagnostics has a consensus price target of $3.94, suggesting a potential upside of 273.22%. Given Lucid Diagnostics’ higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Lucid Diagnostics is more favorable than Intuitive Surgical.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Intuitive Surgical and Lucid Diagnostics”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Intuitive Surgical	$8.35 billion	24.62	$2.32 billion	$7.56	75.89
Lucid Diagnostics	$4.35 million	33.39	-$45.53 million	($1.04)	-1.01

Intuitive Surgical has higher revenue and earnings than Lucid Diagnostics. Lucid Diagnostics is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Intuitive Surgical, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Intuitive Surgical and Lucid Diagnostics’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Intuitive Surgical	28.58%	15.08%	13.38%
Lucid Diagnostics	-1,418.39%	N/A	-96.99%

Summary

Intuitive Surgical beats Lucid Diagnostics on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Intuitive Surgical

Intuitive Surgical, Inc. develops, manufactures, and markets products that enable physicians and healthcare providers to enhance the quality of and access to minimally invasive care in the United States and internationally. The company offers the da Vinci Surgical System that enables complex surgery using a minimally invasive approach; and Ion endoluminal system, which extends its commercial offerings beyond surgery into diagnostic procedures enabling minimally invasive biopsies in the lung. It also provides a suite of stapling, energy, and core instrumentation for its multi-port da Vinci surgical systems; progressive learning pathways to support the use of its technology; infrastructure of service and support specialists, a complement of services to its customers, including installation, repair, maintenance, 24/7 technical support, and proactive system health monitoring; and integrated digital capabilities providing connected offerings, streamlining performance for hospitals with program-enhancing insights. The company sells its products through direct sales organizations, such as capital and clinical sales teams. It has a collaboration agreement with FluoGuide A/S for head & neck cancer. The company was incorporated in 1995 and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.

About Lucid Diagnostics

Lucid Diagnostics Inc. operates as a commercial-stage medical diagnostics technology company in the United States. The company focuses on patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) who are at risk of developing esophageal precancer and cancer, primarily highly lethal esophageal adenocarcinoma. Its flagship product, the EsoGuard Esophageal DNA Test performed on samples collected with the EsoCheck Esophageal Cell collection device, a testing tool with the goal of preventing EAC deaths through early detection of esophageal precancer in at-risk GERD patients. The company was incorporated in 2018 and is based in New York, New York. Lucid Diagnostics Inc. is a subsidiary of PAVmed Inc.