Critical Survey: Electro-Sensors (ELSE) versus Its Peers

Electro-Sensors (NASDAQ:ELSE) is one of 378 public companies in the “Electronic Equipment, Instruments & Components” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its peers? We will compare Electro-Sensors to related businesses based on the strength of its institutional ownership, earnings, profitability, dividends, risk, valuation and analyst recommendations.

Dividends

Electro-Sensors pays an annual dividend of $0.16 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.1%. Electro-Sensors pays out 200.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. As a group, “Electronic Equipment, Instruments & Components” companies pay a dividend yield of 1.8% and pay out 66.3% of their earnings in the form of a dividend.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

11.7% of Electro-Sensors shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 43.5% of shares of all “Electronic Equipment, Instruments & Components” companies are owned by institutional investors. 13.3% of Electro-Sensors shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 16.5% of shares of all “Electronic Equipment, Instruments & Components” companies are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Electro-Sensors and its peers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Electro-Sensors	2.42%	1.73%	1.62%
Electro-Sensors Competitors	-184.71%	-150.36%	-6.96%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings for Electro-Sensors and its peers, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Electro-Sensors	0	1	0	0	2.00
Electro-Sensors Competitors	1989	7504	10220	626	2.47

As a group, “Electronic Equipment, Instruments & Components” companies have a potential upside of 19.09%. Given Electro-Sensors’ peers stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Electro-Sensors has less favorable growth aspects than its peers.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Electro-Sensors and its peers gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Electro-Sensors	$10.48 million	$310,000.00	96.75
Electro-Sensors Competitors	$3.96 billion	$191.02 million	-6.69

Electro-Sensors’ peers have higher revenue and earnings than Electro-Sensors. Electro-Sensors is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Volatility & Risk

Electro-Sensors has a beta of 0.63, indicating that its stock price is 37% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Electro-Sensors’ peers have a beta of -0.32, indicating that their average stock price is 132% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Electro-Sensors peers beat Electro-Sensors on 9 of the 15 factors compared.

About Electro-Sensors

Electro-Sensors, Inc. engages in the manufacture and selling of industrial production monitoring and process control systems. Its products include shaft speed witches; wireless hazard monitoring; temperature sensor; slide gate and angle position; bearing sensors and belt alignment; and motor drive control. The company was founded by James P. Slattery in 1965 and is headquartered in Minnetonka, MN.