Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS) versus Eltek (NASDAQ:ELTK) Head to Head Review

Eltek (NASDAQ:ELTK) and Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS) are both technology companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, analyst recommendations, earnings, risk, institutional ownership, profitability and dividends.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Eltek and Littelfuse, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Eltek	1	0	0	0	1.00
Littelfuse	0	2	4	0	2.67

Littelfuse has a consensus target price of $465.83, suggesting a potential upside of 13.46%. Given Littelfuse’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Littelfuse is more favorable than Eltek.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

64.6% of Eltek shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 96.1% of Littelfuse shares are owned by institutional investors. 72.0% of Eltek shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.0% of Littelfuse shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Volatility and Risk

Eltek has a beta of 0.74, indicating that its stock price is 26% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Littelfuse has a beta of 1.47, indicating that its stock price is 47% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Eltek and Littelfuse”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Eltek	$48.48 million	1.12	$830,000.00	($0.91)	-8.88
Littelfuse	$2.39 billion	4.37	-$71.70 million	($0.50)	-821.15

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

Profitability

This table compares Eltek and Littelfuse’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Eltek	-12.66%	-13.57%	-9.01%
Littelfuse	-0.31%	13.02%	8.32%

Dividends

Eltek pays an annual dividend of $0.19 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.4%. Littelfuse pays an annual dividend of $3.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.8%. Eltek pays out -20.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Littelfuse pays out -640.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Littelfuse has increased its dividend for 15 consecutive years.

Summary

Littelfuse beats Eltek on 13 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Eltek

Eltek Ltd. manufactures, markets, and sells printed circuit boards (PCBs) in Israel, Europe, North America, India, the Netherlands, and internationally. It offers a range of custom designed PCBs, including rigid, double-sided and multi-layer PCBs, and flexible circuitry boards. The company also provides high density interconnect, flex-rigid, and multi-layered boards. It primarily serves medical technology, defense and aerospace, industrial, telecom, and networking equipment industries, as well as contract electronic manufacturers. The company markets and sells its products primarily through direct sales personnel, sales representatives, and PCB trading and manufacturing companies. Eltek Ltd. was incorporated in 1970 and is headquartered in Petah Tikva, Israel. Eltek Ltd. operates as a subsidiary of Nistec Golan Ltd.

About Littelfuse

Littelfuse, Inc. designs, manufactures, and sells electronic components, modules, and subassemblies in the Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe. The company operates through Electronic, Transportation, and Industrial segments. The Electronics segment offers fuses and fuse accessories, positive temperature coefficient resettable fuses, electromechanical switches and interconnect solutions, polymer electrostatic discharge suppressors, varistors, reed switch based magnetic sensing products, and gas discharge tubes; and discrete transient voltage suppressor (TVS) diodes, TVS diode arrays, protection and switching thyristors, metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors and diodes, and insulated gate bipolar transistors. This segment serves industrial motor drives and power conversion, automotive electronics, electric vehicle and related charging infrastructure, aerospace, power supplies, data centers, telecommunications, medical devices, alternative energy, building and home automation, appliances, and mobile electronics markets. The Transportation segment provides blade, resettable, and high-current and high-voltage fuses, as well as battery cable protectors; fuses, switches, relays, circuit breakers, and power distribution modules; and sensor products. This segment serves heavy-duty truck, construction, agriculture, material handling, and marine. The Industrial segment offers industrial fuses, protection relays, contactors, transformers, residual current devices, ground fault circuit interrupters, residual current monitors, arc fault detection devices, and temperature sensors for use in renewable energy and energy storage systems, electric vehicle infrastructure, HVAC systems, industrial safety, non-residential construction, MRO, mining, and factory automation. It sells its products through distributors, direct sales force, and manufacturers' representatives. Littelfuse, Inc. was founded in 1927 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.