Analyzing Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE:TMO) and Seer (NASDAQ:SEER)

Seer (NASDAQ:SEER) and Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE:TMO) are both healthcare companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, dividends, analyst recommendations, risk, institutional ownership, profitability and earnings.

Profitability

This table compares Seer and Thermo Fisher Scientific’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Seer	-464.78%	-26.58%	-23.51%
Thermo Fisher Scientific	15.04%	17.09%	8.12%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

75.2% of Seer shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 89.2% of Thermo Fisher Scientific shares are held by institutional investors. 11.3% of Seer shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.3% of Thermo Fisher Scientific shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Seer and Thermo Fisher Scientific”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Seer	$16.58 million	7.26	-$73.60 million	($1.24)	-1.77
Thermo Fisher Scientific	$44.56 billion	4.79	$6.70 billion	$18.59	31.05

Thermo Fisher Scientific has higher revenue and earnings than Seer. Seer is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Thermo Fisher Scientific, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility and Risk

Seer has a beta of 1.56, meaning that its stock price is 56% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Thermo Fisher Scientific has a beta of 0.85, meaning that its stock price is 15% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings for Seer and Thermo Fisher Scientific, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Seer	1	0	0	2	3.00
Thermo Fisher Scientific	0	6	17	1	2.79

Seer currently has a consensus target price of $4.00, indicating a potential upside of 82.65%. Thermo Fisher Scientific has a consensus target price of $619.41, indicating a potential upside of 7.31%. Given Seer’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Seer is more favorable than Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Summary

Thermo Fisher Scientific beats Seer on 9 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Seer

Seer, Inc., a life sciences company, engages in developing and commercializing products to decode the biology of the proteome. It develops Proteograph Product Suite, an integrated solution that includes proprietary engineered nanoparticles, consumables, automation instrumentation, and software to perform proteomic analysis to provide a solution that can be incorporated by nearly any lab for research use only. The company intends to sell its products for research use only, which cover academic institutions, life sciences, and research laboratories, as well as biopharmaceutical and biotechnology companies for non-diagnostic and non-clinical purposes. It operates in China, Australia, Eastern Europe, Israel, and Japan. The company was formerly known as Seer Biosciences, Inc. and changed its name to Seer, Inc. in July 2018. Seer, Inc. was incorporated in 2017 and is headquartered in Redwood City, California.

About Thermo Fisher Scientific

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. provides life sciences solutions, analytical instruments, specialty diagnostics, and laboratory products and biopharma services in the North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and internationally. The company's Life Sciences Solutions segment offers reagents, instruments, and consumables for biological and medical research, discovery, and production of drugs and vaccines, as well as diagnosis of infections and diseases; and solutions include biosciences, genetic sciences, and bio production to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, agricultural, clinical, healthcare, academic, and government markets. Its Analytical Instruments segment provides instruments, consumables, software, and services for pharmaceutical, biotechnology, academic, government, environmental, and other research and industrial markets, as well as clinical laboratories. The company's Specialty Diagnostics segment offers liquid, ready-to-use, and lyophilized immunodiagnostic reagent kits, as well as calibrators, controls, protein detection assays, and instruments; immunodiagnostics develops, manufactures and markets complete bloodtest systems to support the clinical diagnosis and monitoring of allergy, asthma and autoimmune diseases; dehydrated and prepared culture media, collection and transport systems, instrumentation, and consumables; human leukocyte antigen typing and testing for organ transplant market; and healthcare products. Its Laboratory Products and Biopharma Services segment provides laboratory products, research and safety market channel, and pharma services and clinical research. It offers products and services through a direct sales force, customer-service professionals, electronic commerce, and third-party distributors under Thermo Scientific; Applied Biosystems; Invitrogen; Fisher Scientific; Unity Lab Services; and Patheon and PPD. Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. was founded in 1956 and is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts.