Head to Head Review: Keysight Technologies (NYSE:KEYS) vs. Syntec Optics (NASDAQ:OPTX)

Syntec Optics (NASDAQ:OPTX) and Keysight Technologies (NYSE:KEYS) are both technology companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, profitability, institutional ownership, earnings, valuation, dividends and analyst recommendations.

Profitability

This table compares Syntec Optics and Keysight Technologies’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Syntec Optics	-8.26%	-16.50%	-8.68%
Keysight Technologies	19.08%	24.34%	13.10%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and price targets for Syntec Optics and Keysight Technologies, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Syntec Optics	1	0	0	0	1.00
Keysight Technologies	0	2	11	1	2.93

Keysight Technologies has a consensus price target of $392.83, suggesting a potential upside of 13.11%. Given Keysight Technologies’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Keysight Technologies is more favorable than Syntec Optics.

Risk and Volatility

Syntec Optics has a beta of -0.77, suggesting that its stock price is 177% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Keysight Technologies has a beta of 1.21, suggesting that its stock price is 21% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Syntec Optics and Keysight Technologies”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Syntec Optics	$28.08 million	10.53	-$1.79 million	($0.06)	-122.33
Keysight Technologies	$5.38 billion	11.00	$850.00 million	$7.28	47.71

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

Insider and Institutional Ownership

84.6% of Keysight Technologies shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.8% of Syntec Optics shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.4% of Keysight Technologies shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Keysight Technologies beats Syntec Optics on 14 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Syntec Optics

Syntec Optics Holdings, Inc. manufactures and supplies integrated optics for biomedical, defense and military, consumer, and other applications. It offers camera modules; tool design, design for manufacturing, optical and opto-mechanical design, and moldflow analysis; SPDT optics, such as freedom optics, microlens arrays, spheres and aspheres, diffractives, SPDT materials, and optical tooling; replicative molding, that includes polymer and glass molding, and molded production materials; thin film coating and coating curve materials; and precision machining and precision machining materials. The company also provides clean room assembly, such as opto mechanical, opto electronic, and integrated photonics; infrared optics, microlens arrays, software development, and optical metrology, and catalog optics services. In addition, it offers driverless cars, integrated photonics, robotics, sensors, VR and AR, machine vision, facial imagining, heads up display, finger print scanners, and laser scanners technology for consumers; night vision goggles, missile laser guides, biometrics, infrared and thermal imaging, ordnance optics, head mounted displays, 2D and 3D scanners, humvee lighting , laser targeting, protective domes and windows, and lidar technologies for defense and miliary; and medical diagnostic, microfluidics, surgical components and systems, and medical sensing technology for medical sectors. The company was founded in 1981 and is based in Rochester, New York.

About Keysight Technologies

Keysight Technologies, Inc. provides electronic design and test solutions to commercial communications, networking, aerospace, defense and government, automotive, energy, semiconductor, electronic, and education industries in the Americas, Europe, and the Asia Pacific. The company operates in two segments, Communications Solutions Group and Electronic Industrial Solutions Group. It offers electronic design automation (EDA) software; instrument measurement software, instrument workflow software, and software testing; digital multimeter, phase noise measurement, power meters and power sensors, counters, LCR meters and impedance measurement products, and electrometers; and spectrum analyzers, network analyzers, logic analyzers, protocol analyzers and exercisers, bit error ratio testers, noise figure analyzers, AC and DC power analyzers, materials test equipment, device current waveform analyzers, and curve tracers. The company also provides waveform and function generators, arbitrary waveform generators, DC power supplies, and DC electronic loads; wireless drive test, radio access and core network test, wireless analyzers, wireless network emulators, and over-the-air test; application and threat intelligence, cloud test, cyber training simulator, network test hardware, synthetic traffic generators, protocol and load test, network security test, and network modeling; bypass switches, clock synchronization, cloud visibility, network and application monitoring, network packet brokers, and network taps; and application-specific test systems, photonic test and measurement products, and MMIC millimeter-wave and microwave devices. In addition, it offers product support, technical support, installation, training, engineering, and integration services. The company sells its products through direct sales force, distributors, resellers, and manufacturer's representatives. Keysight Technologies, Inc. was founded in 1939 and is headquartered in Santa Rosa, California.