Comparing nLight (LASR) & Its Competitors

nLight (NASDAQ:LASR) is one of 376 publicly-traded companies in the “Electronic Equipment, Instruments & Components” industry, but how does it compare to its rivals? We will compare nLight to similar businesses based on the strength of its valuation, profitability, dividends, risk, earnings, analyst recommendations and institutional ownership.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

83.9% of nLight shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 43.5% of shares of all “Electronic Equipment, Instruments & Components” companies are owned by institutional investors. 3.1% of nLight shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 16.4% of shares of all “Electronic Equipment, Instruments & Components” companies are owned 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.

Volatility and Risk

nLight has a beta of 2.46, indicating that its share price is 146% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, nLight’s rivals have a beta of -0.30, indicating that their average share price is 130% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and target prices for nLight and its rivals, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
nLight	1	0	9	2	3.00
nLight Competitors	2052	7633	10468	668	2.47

nLight currently has a consensus price target of $82.06, suggesting a potential upside of 97.55%. As a group, “Electronic Equipment, Instruments & Components” companies have a potential upside of 34.49%. Given nLight’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe nLight is more favorable than its rivals.

Profitability

This table compares nLight and its rivals’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
nLight	-4.02%	-1.03%	-0.85%
nLight Competitors	-139.38%	-23.97%	-6.40%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares nLight and its rivals gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
nLight	$261.33 million	-$23.47 million	-180.59
nLight Competitors	$4.06 billion	$173.71 million	4.62

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

Summary

nLight beats its rivals on 9 of the 13 factors compared.

nLight Company Profile

nLIGHT, Inc. develops and manufactures lasers and related photonics products for industrial, aerospace and defense applications. Its offerings include high-power semiconductor lasers, fiber lasers and ultrafast lasers, along with components and systems used to deliver and control laser energy. The company’s products support applications such as materials processing and other industrial tasks, as well as defense technologies including directed-energy systems. nLIGHT serves customers in the United States and international markets.