Head to Head Review: ESS Tech (GWH) and Its Rivals

ESS Tech (NYSE:GWH) is one of 216 publicly-traded companies in the “Electrical Equipment” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its peers? We will compare ESS Tech to related companies based on the strength of its analyst recommendations, valuation, profitability, earnings, institutional ownership, dividends and risk.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings for ESS Tech and its peers, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
ESS Tech	1	0	1	0	2.00
ESS Tech Competitors	2280	5150	7193	434	2.38

ESS Tech presently has a consensus target price of $2.00, suggesting a potential upside of 1,176.32%. As a group, “Electrical Equipment” companies have a potential upside of 41.92%. Given ESS Tech’s higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe ESS Tech is more favorable than its peers.

Profitability

This table compares ESS Tech and its peers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
ESS Tech	N/A	-1,934.84%	-156.40%
ESS Tech Competitors	-354.39%	-45.13%	-7.93%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares ESS Tech and its peers revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
ESS Tech	$1.58 million	-$63.44 million	-0.05
ESS Tech Competitors	$2.36 billion	$141.14 million	20.75

ESS Tech’s peers have higher revenue and earnings than ESS Tech. ESS Tech is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

46.8% of ESS Tech shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 37.3% of shares of all “Electrical Equipment” companies are owned by institutional investors. 0.7% of ESS Tech shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 14.7% of shares of all “Electrical Equipment” companies are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Volatility and Risk

ESS Tech has a beta of 1.46, suggesting that its share price is 46% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, ESS Tech’s peers have a beta of -21.36, suggesting that their average share price is 2,236% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

ESS Tech peers beat ESS Tech on 8 of the 13 factors compared.

ESS Tech Company Profile

ESS Tech, Inc., an energy storage company, designs and produces iron flow batteries for commercial and utility-scale energy storage applications worldwide. It offers energy storage products, which include Energy Warehouse, a behind-the-meter solution; and Energy Center, a front-of-the-meter solution. The company was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Wilsonville, Oregon.