Park Aerospace (NYSE:PKE) & Rocket Lab (NASDAQ:RKLB) Critical Contrast

Rocket Lab (NASDAQ:RKLB) and Park Aerospace (NYSE:PKE) are both aerospace companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, profitability, dividends, risk, valuation, earnings and institutional ownership.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

71.8% of Rocket Lab shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 77.8% of Park Aerospace shares are held by institutional investors. 11.9% of Rocket Lab shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 11.3% of Park Aerospace shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Rocket Lab and Park Aerospace”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Rocket Lab	$554.54 million	81.73	-$190.18 million	($0.38)	-223.29
Park Aerospace	$62.03 million	7.48	$5.88 million	$0.36	64.77

Park Aerospace has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Rocket Lab. Rocket Lab is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Park Aerospace, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Risk and Volatility

Rocket Lab has a beta of 2.16, meaning that its stock price is 116% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Park Aerospace has a beta of 0.31, meaning that its stock price is 69% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current recommendations and price targets for Rocket Lab and Park Aerospace, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Rocket Lab	1	5	7	2	2.67
Park Aerospace	0	1	0	0	2.00

Rocket Lab presently has a consensus target price of $61.25, suggesting a potential downside of 27.81%. Given Rocket Lab’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Rocket Lab is more favorable than Park Aerospace.

Profitability

This table compares Rocket Lab and Park Aerospace’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Rocket Lab	-35.64%	-27.26%	-12.21%
Park Aerospace	11.57%	7.97%	7.01%

Summary

Rocket Lab beats Park Aerospace on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Rocket Lab

Rocket Lab USA, Inc., a space company, provides launch services and space systems solutions for the space and defense industries. The company provides launch services, spacecraft design services, spacecraft components, spacecraft manufacturing, and other spacecraft and on-orbit management solutions; and constellation management services, as well as designs and manufactures small and medium-class rockets. It also designs, manufactures, and sells Electron, a reusable orbital-class small rocket; and the Photon satellite platforms, as well as developing the Neutron 8-ton payload class launch vehicle; conducts remote launch activities; and designs and manufactures a range of components and subsystems for the Photon family of spacecraft and broader merchant spacecraft components. The company serves commercial, aerospace prime contractors, and government customers. Rocket Lab USA, Inc. was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Long Beach, California.

About Park Aerospace

Park Aerospace Corp., an aerospace company, develops and manufactures solution and hot-melt advanced composite materials used to produce composite structures for the aerospace market in North America, Asia, and Europe. It offers advanced composite materials, including film adhesives and lightning strike protection materials that are used to produce primary and secondary structures for jet engines, large and regional transport aircrafts, military aircrafts, unmanned aerial vehicles, business jets, general aviation aircrafts, and rotary wing aircrafts. The company also provides specialty ablative materials for rocket motors and nozzles; and specially designed materials for radome applications. In addition, it designs and fabricates composite parts, structures and assemblies, and low volume tooling for the aerospace industry. The company was formerly known as Park Electrochemical Corp. and changed its name to Park Aerospace Corp. in July 2019. Park Aerospace Corp. was incorporated in 1954 and is based in Westbury, New York.