Comparing Wingstop (NASDAQ:WING) & Sweetgreen (NYSE:SG)

Wingstop (NASDAQ:WING) and Sweetgreen (NYSE:SG) are both retail/wholesale companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, institutional ownership, profitability, analyst recommendations, earnings, dividends and risk.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Wingstop and Sweetgreen’s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Wingstop	$460.05 million	24.43	$70.18 million	$2.81	136.51
Sweetgreen	$584.04 million	4.82	-$113.38 million	($0.93)	-26.70

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

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for Wingstop and Sweetgreen, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Wingstop	0	10	8	0	2.44
Sweetgreen	1	2	6	0	2.56

Wingstop presently has a consensus target price of $353.17, indicating a potential downside of 7.93%. Sweetgreen has a consensus target price of $31.25, indicating a potential upside of 25.86%. Given Sweetgreen’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Sweetgreen is more favorable than Wingstop.

Volatility and Risk

Wingstop has a beta of 1.69, indicating that its share price is 69% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Sweetgreen has a beta of 2.31, indicating that its share price is 131% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

95.8% of Sweetgreen shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.4% of Wingstop shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 21.5% of Sweetgreen shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Wingstop and Sweetgreen’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Wingstop	16.75%	-19.64%	21.36%
Sweetgreen	-17.15%	-20.74%	-11.75%

Summary

Wingstop beats Sweetgreen on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Wingstop

Wingstop Inc., together with its subsidiaries, franchises and operates restaurants under the Wingstop brand. Its restaurants offer classic wings, boneless wings, tenders, and hand-sauced-and-tossed in various flavors, as well as chicken sandwiches with fries and hand-cut carrots and celery that are cooked-to-order. The company was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Addison, Texas.

About Sweetgreen

Sweetgreen, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates fast food restaurants serving healthy foods at scale in the United States. The company also accepts orders through its online and mobile ordering platforms, as well as sells gift cards that do not have an expiration date and can be redeemed. The company was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Los Angeles, California.