Amer Sports (NYSE:AS) vs. Pool (NASDAQ:POOL) Head to Head Survey

Pool (NASDAQ:POOL) and Amer Sports (NYSE:AS) are both large-cap consumer discretionary companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, risk, valuation, earnings and dividends.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

99.0% of Pool shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 40.3% of Amer Sports shares are held by institutional investors. 3.0% of Pool shares are held 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.

Volatility & Risk

Pool has a beta of 1.08, meaning that its stock price is 8% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Amer Sports has a beta of 3.3, meaning that its stock price is 230% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for Pool and Amer Sports, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Pool	0	5	2	0	2.29
Amer Sports	0	3	13	2	2.94

Pool currently has a consensus price target of $342.14, indicating a potential upside of 2.72%. Amer Sports has a consensus price target of $41.62, indicating a potential upside of 13.86%. Given Amer Sports’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Amer Sports is more favorable than Pool.

Profitability

This table compares Pool and Amer Sports’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Pool	7.79%	30.99%	11.51%
Amer Sports	3.93%	6.87%	3.94%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Pool and Amer Sports”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Pool	$5.31 billion	2.34	$434.33 million	$10.84	30.73
Amer Sports	$5.18 billion	3.91	$72.60 million	$0.41	89.16

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

Summary

Pool beats Amer Sports on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Pool

Pool Corporation distributes swimming pool supplies, equipment, and related leisure products in the United States and internationally. The company offers maintenance products, including chemicals, supplies, and pool accessories; repair and replacement parts for pool equipment, such as cleaners, filters, heaters, pumps, and lights; and building materials, such as concrete, plumbing and electrical components, functional and decorative pool surfaces, decking materials, tiles, hardscapes, and natural stones for pool installations and remodeling. It also provides pool equipment and components for new pool construction and the remodeling of existing pools; irrigation and related products, such as irrigation system components, and professional turf care equipment and supplies; commercial products, including heaters, safety equipment, commercial decking equipment, and commercial pumps and filters. In addition, the company offers fiberglass pools, and hot tubs and packaged pool kits comprising walls, liners, braces, and coping for in-ground and above-ground pools; and other pool construction and recreational products comprising discretionary recreational and related outdoor living products, such as grills and components for outdoor kitchens. It serves swimming pool remodelers and builders; specialty retailers that sell swimming pool supplies; swimming pool repair and service businesses; irrigation construction and landscape maintenance contractors; and commercial pool operators and pool contractors. Pool Corporation was incorporated in 1993 and is headquartered in Covington, Louisiana.

About Amer Sports

Amer Sports, Inc. designs, manufactures, markets, distributes, and sells sports equipment, apparel, footwear, and accessories in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Americas, China, and the Asia Pacific. It operates through three segments: Technical Apparel, Outdoor Performance, and Ball & Racquet Sports. The Technical Apparel segment offers outdoor apparel, footwear, and accessories which includes climbing gear. The Outdoor Performance segment provides hiking and running footwear, functional apparel, skiing and snowboarding gear, and lifestyle footwear. The Ball & Racquet Sports segment offers sports equipment for tennis, baseball, american football, basketball, golf, and various other professional and recreational sports. This segment provides custom-fitting protective gear and apparel for baseball, softball, football, and lacrosse. It sells its products under the Arc'teryx, PeakPerformance, Salomon, Atomic, Armada, ENVE, Wilson, Louisville Slugger, DeMarini, EvoShield, and ATEC brands. The company distributes its products through retail stores, general sporting goods retailers, specialty stores, independently operated partner stores, and distributors, as well as its e-commerce websites, and retailer-owned and third-party e-commerce websites. The company was formerly known as Amer Sports Management Holding (Cayman) Limited and changed its name to Amer Sports, Inc. in August 2023. Amer Sports, Inc. was founded in 1950 and is based in Helsinki, Finland.