Head-To-Head Review: Mercury Systems (NASDAQ:MRCY) & BETA Technologies (NYSE:BETA)

BETA Technologies (NYSE:BETA) and Mercury Systems (NASDAQ:MRCY) are both mid-cap industrials companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, institutional ownership, valuation, earnings, dividends, analyst recommendations and risk.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares BETA Technologies and Mercury Systems”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
BETA Technologies	$35.62 million	132.12	-$745.87 million	($13.02)	-1.60
Mercury Systems	$983.62 million	5.12	-$29.67 million	($0.50)	-165.60

Mercury Systems has higher revenue and earnings than BETA Technologies. Mercury Systems is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than BETA Technologies, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

96.0% of Mercury Systems shares are held by institutional investors. 24.5% of BETA Technologies shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.0% of Mercury Systems shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings for BETA Technologies and Mercury Systems, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
BETA Technologies	1	1	9	0	2.73
Mercury Systems	2	4	5	2	2.54

BETA Technologies presently has a consensus price target of $31.11, indicating a potential upside of 49.04%. Mercury Systems has a consensus price target of $112.80, indicating a potential upside of 36.23%. Given BETA Technologies’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities analysts clearly believe BETA Technologies is more favorable than Mercury Systems.

Profitability

This table compares BETA Technologies and Mercury Systems’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
BETA Technologies	-1,913.91%	-96.24%	-48.20%
Mercury Systems	-3.02%	1.29%	0.78%

Summary

Mercury Systems beats BETA Technologies on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About BETA Technologies

BETA Technologies Inc. is an electric aerospace company. It involved in designing, manufacturing and selling high-performance electric aircraft, advanced electric propulsion systems, components and charging systems. BETA Technologies Inc. is based in SOUTH BURLINGTON.

About Mercury Systems

Mercury Systems, Inc., a technology company, manufactures and sells components, products, modules, and subsystems for aerospace and defense industries in the United States, Europe, and the Asia Pacific. Its products and solutions are deployed in approximately 300 programs with 25 defense contractors and commercial aviation customers. The company offers components, including power amplifiers and limiters, switches, oscillators, filters, equalizers, digital and analog converters, chips, monolithic microwave integrated circuits, and memory and storage devices; modules and sub-assemblies, such as embedded processing boards, switched fabrics and boards, digital receivers, multi-chip modules, integrated radio frequency and microwave multi-function assemblies, tuners, and transceivers, as well as graphics and video boards; and integrated subsystems. It also designs and develops digital radio frequency memory units for various modern electronic warfare applications; radar environment simulation and test systems for defense and intelligence applications; and signals intelligence payloads and EO/IR technologies for small UAV platforms, as well as onboard UAV processor systems for real-time wide area motion imagery. The company was formerly known as Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. and changed its name to Mercury Systems, Inc. in November 2012. The company was incorporated in 1981 and is headquartered in Andover, Massachusetts.