Critical Survey: Fabrinet (NYSE:FN) & Vishay Precision Group (NYSE:VPG)

Fabrinet (NYSE:FN) and Vishay Precision Group (NYSE:VPG) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, earnings, valuation, profitability, risk and dividends.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Fabrinet and Vishay Precision Group”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Fabrinet	$3.42 billion	4.92	$332.53 million	$9.71	48.31
Vishay Precision Group	$306.52 million	1.65	$9.91 million	$0.60	63.41

Fabrinet has higher revenue and earnings than Vishay Precision Group. Fabrinet is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Vishay Precision Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Fabrinet and Vishay Precision Group’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Fabrinet	9.77%	18.16%	12.86%
Vishay Precision Group	2.65%	2.02%	1.45%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

97.4% of Fabrinet shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 87.6% of Vishay Precision Group shares are held by institutional investors. 0.2% of Fabrinet shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 7.7% of Vishay Precision Group shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Volatility and Risk

Fabrinet has a beta of 1.05, indicating that its share price is 5% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Vishay Precision Group has a beta of 0.86, indicating that its share price is 14% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and price targets for Fabrinet and Vishay Precision Group, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Fabrinet	0	3	5	1	2.78
Vishay Precision Group	0	2	1	0	2.33

Fabrinet currently has a consensus price target of $451.29, suggesting a potential downside of 3.79%. Vishay Precision Group has a consensus price target of $28.50, suggesting a potential downside of 25.09%. Given Fabrinet’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Fabrinet is more favorable than Vishay Precision Group.

Summary

Fabrinet beats Vishay Precision Group on 13 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Fabrinet

Fabrinet provides optical packaging and precision optical, electro-mechanical, and electronic manufacturing services in North America, the Asia-Pacific, and Europe. The company offers a range of advanced optical and electro-mechanical capabilities in the manufacturing process, including process design and engineering, supply chain management, manufacturing, printed circuit board assembly, advanced packaging, integration, final assembly, and testing. Its products include switching products, including reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers, optical amplifiers, modulators, and other optical components and modules that enable network managers to route voice, video, and data communications traffic through fiber optic cables at various wavelengths, speeds, and over various distances. The company's products also comprise tunable lasers, transceivers, and transponders; and active optical cables, which provide high-speed interconnect capabilities for data centers and computing clusters, as well as Infiniband, Ethernet, fiber channel, and optical backplane connectivity. In addition, it provides solid state, diode-pumped, gas, and fiber lasers used in semiconductor processing, biotechnology and medical device, metrology, and material processing industries; and differential pressure, micro-gyro, fuel, and other sensors used in automobiles, as well as non-contact temperature measurement sensors for the medical industry. Further, the company designs and fabricates application-specific crystals, lenses, prisms, mirrors, laser components, and substrates; and other custom and standard borosilicate, clear fused quartz, and synthetic fused silica glass products. It serves original equipment manufacturers of optical communication components, modules and sub-systems, industrial lasers, automotive components, medical devices, and sensors. The company was incorporated in 1999 and is based in Grand Cayman, the Cayman Islands.

About Vishay Precision Group

Vishay Precision Group, Inc. designs, manufactures, and markets specialized sensors, weighing solutions, and measurement systems in the United States, Israel, the United Kingdom, rest of Europe, Asia, and Canada. It operates through three segments: Sensors, Weighing Solutions, and Measurement Systems. Its product portfolio includes precision resistors, strain gages, load cells and force measurement transducers, on-board weighing systems, and process weighing products; rolling force measuring load cell systems and pressure transmitters; web tension measurement load cells and systems; and optical strip width gages; and laser velocimeters for speed and length measurements and closed-loop crop optimization control systems for optimal strip cuts. The company also offers data acquisition systems and sensors for product safety testing; thermal-mechanical simulation systems for metallurgical research; and conditioning, data acquisition and control systems, as well as electronic displays, signal processors, microelectromechanical system sensors, cabling, system software, and communications software/hardware. Its products are used in industrial comprising waste management, bulk hauling, logging, scales manufacturing, engineering systems, pharmaceutical, oil, chemical, steel, paper, and food industries, as well as test and measurement, steel, medical, construction, agricultural, and consumer markets. The company offers its products under the Alpha Electronics, Powertron, Vishay Foil Resistors, Micro-Measurements, APR, Celtron, Revere, Sensortronics, Tedea-Huntleigh, Stress-tek, Vulcan, BLH Nobel, KELK, and DTS brands. Vishay Precision Group, Inc. was incorporated in 2009 and is headquartered in Malvern, Pennsylvania.