Head to Head Review: IDEX (NYSE:IEX) & Blue Bird (NASDAQ:BLBD)

Blue Bird (NASDAQ:BLBD) and IDEX (NYSE:IEX) are both industrials companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, risk, analyst recommendations, valuation, institutional ownership, profitability and earnings.

Volatility and Risk

Blue Bird has a beta of 1.37, meaning that its stock price is 37% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, IDEX has a beta of 0.97, meaning that its stock price is 3% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings for Blue Bird and IDEX, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Blue Bird	1	0	7	1	2.89
IDEX	0	3	9	0	2.75

Blue Bird presently has a consensus price target of $85.33, suggesting a potential upside of 48.38%. IDEX has a consensus price target of $260.73, suggesting a potential upside of 10.37%. Given Blue Bird’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Blue Bird is more favorable than IDEX.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Blue Bird and IDEX”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Blue Bird	$1.48 billion	1.22	$127.72 million	$8.22	7.00
IDEX	$3.46 billion	5.04	$483.20 million	$6.95	33.99

IDEX has higher revenue and earnings than Blue Bird. Blue Bird is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than IDEX, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Blue Bird and IDEX’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Blue Bird	17.48%	39.97%	18.93%
IDEX	14.49%	15.69%	9.10%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

93.6% of Blue Bird shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 98.0% of IDEX shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.1% of Blue Bird shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.5% of IDEX shares are owned by 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.

Summary

Blue Bird beats IDEX on 9 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Blue Bird

Blue Bird Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, designs, engineers, manufactures, and sells school buses in the United States, Canada, and internationally. The company operates through two segments, Bus and Parts. It offers Type C, Type D, and specialty buses; and alternative power options through its propane powered, gasoline powered, compressed natural gas powered, and electric powered school buses, as well as diesel engines. The company also sells replacement bus parts; and provides financing services and extended warranties related to its products. Blue Bird Corporation sells its products through drop ship and a network of dealers, as well as directly to fleet operators, the United States government, and state governments; independent service centers; and maintains a parts distribution center. Blue Bird Corporation was founded in 1927 and is headquartered in Macon, Georgia.

About IDEX

IDEX Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides applied solutions worldwide. The company operates through three segments: Fluid & Metering Technologies (FMT), Health & Science Technologies (HST), and Fire & Safety/Diversified Products (FSDP). The FMT segment designs, produces, and distributes positive displacement pumps, valves, small volume provers, flow meters, injectors, and other fluid-handling pump modules and systems, as well as flow monitoring and other services for the food, chemical, general industrial, water and wastewater, agricultural, and energy industries. The HST segment designs, produces, and distributes precision fluidics positive displacement pumps, powder and liquid processing technologies, drying systems, micro-precision components, pneumatic components and sealing solutions, high performance molded and extruded sealing components, custom mechanical and shaft seals, engineered hygienic mixers and valves, biocompatible medical devices and implantables, air compressors and blowers, optical components and coatings, laboratory and commercial equipment, and precision photonic solutions. This segment serves food and beverage, life sciences, analytical instruments, pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical, industrial, semiconductor, automotive/transportation, medical/dental, energy, cosmetics, marine, chemical, wastewater and water treatment, research and aerospace/defense markets. The FSDP segment designs, produces, and distributes firefighting pumps, valves and controls, rescue tools, lifting bags, and other components and systems for the fire and rescue industry; engineered stainless steel banding and clamping devices for various industrial and commercial applications; and precision equipment for dispensing, metering, and mixing colorants and paints used in retail and commercial businesses. IDEX Corporation was incorporated in 1987 and is headquartered in Northbrook, Illinois.