Analyzing Electro-Sensors (ELSE) & Its Competitors

Electro-Sensors (NASDAQ:ELSE) is one of 378 publicly-traded companies in the “Electronic Equipment, Instruments & Components” industry, but how does it compare to its competitors? We will compare Electro-Sensors to similar businesses based on the strength of its institutional ownership, valuation, profitability, earnings, analyst recommendations, dividends and risk.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Electro-Sensors and its competitors gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Electro-Sensors	$10.48 million	$310,000.00	96.75
Electro-Sensors Competitors	$4.04 billion	$191.02 million	-6.48

Electro-Sensors’ competitors have higher revenue and earnings than Electro-Sensors. Electro-Sensors is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its competitors, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Profitability

This table compares Electro-Sensors and its competitors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Electro-Sensors	2.42%	1.73%	1.62%
Electro-Sensors Competitors	-184.62%	-150.57%	-6.97%

Dividends

Electro-Sensors pays an annual dividend of $0.16 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.1%. Electro-Sensors pays out 200.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. As a group, “Electronic Equipment, Instruments & Components” companies pay a dividend yield of 1.8% and pay out 66.5% of their earnings in the form of a dividend.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and target prices for Electro-Sensors and its competitors, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Electro-Sensors	0	1	0	0	2.00
Electro-Sensors Competitors	1986	7500	10214	625	2.47

As a group, “Electronic Equipment, Instruments & Components” companies have a potential upside of 19.86%. Given Electro-Sensors’ competitors stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Electro-Sensors has less favorable growth aspects than its competitors.

Volatility & Risk

Electro-Sensors has a beta of 0.63, indicating that its share price is 37% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Electro-Sensors’ competitors have a beta of -0.24, indicating that their average share price is 124% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

11.7% of Electro-Sensors shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 43.8% of shares of all “Electronic Equipment, Instruments & Components” companies are owned by institutional investors. 13.3% of Electro-Sensors 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, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Electro-Sensors competitors beat Electro-Sensors on 9 of the 15 factors compared.

About Electro-Sensors

Electro-Sensors, Inc. engages in the manufacture and selling of industrial production monitoring and process control systems. Its products include shaft speed witches; wireless hazard monitoring; temperature sensor; slide gate and angle position; bearing sensors and belt alignment; and motor drive control. The company was founded by James P. Slattery in 1965 and is headquartered in Minnetonka, MN.