Reviewing Ituran Location and Control (NASDAQ:ITRN) and Halma (OTCMKTS:HLMAF)

Ituran Location and Control (NASDAQ:ITRN) and Halma (OTCMKTS:HLMAF) are both industrials companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, risk, institutional ownership, profitability, valuation, analyst recommendations and dividends.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings for Ituran Location and Control and Halma, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Ituran Location and Control	0	0	3	0	3.00
Halma	1	2	2	2	2.71

Ituran Location and Control currently has a consensus target price of $60.67, indicating a potential upside of 6.13%. Given Ituran Location and Control’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Ituran Location and Control is more favorable than Halma.

Profitability

This table compares Ituran Location and Control and Halma’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Ituran Location and Control	16.15%	27.27%	15.85%
Halma	N/A	N/A	N/A

Insider and Institutional Ownership

94.8% of Ituran Location and Control shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.0% of Ituran Location and Control shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Ituran Location and Control and Halma”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Ituran Location and Control	$359.02 million	3.17	$57.97 million	$2.91	19.64
Halma	$2.87 billion	7.84	$378.18 million	N/A	N/A

Halma has higher revenue and earnings than Ituran Location and Control.

Volatility & Risk

Ituran Location and Control has a beta of 0.73, indicating that its share price is 27% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Halma has a beta of 1.5, indicating that its share price is 50% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Ituran Location and Control beats Halma on 8 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Ituran Location and Control

Ituran Location and Control Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, provides location based telematics services and machine-to-machine telematics products. It operates through two segments, Telematics Services and Telematics Products. The Telematics services segment offers stolen vehicle recovery and tracking services, which enables to locate, track, and recover stolen vehicles for its subscribers; fleet management services that enable corporate and individual customers to track and manage their vehicles in real time; and locator services that allow customers to protect valuable merchandise and equipment. This segment also delivers on-demand navigation guidance, information, and assistance, including the provision of traffic reports and directions, as well as information on the location of gas stations, car repair shops, post offices, hospitals, and other facilities; and Connected Car, a service platform that includes a back-office application, a telematics device installed in the vehicle, mobile apps for IOS and Android users, and interface using the car infotainment screen, as well as usage based insurance and auto financing services. This segment serves insurance companies and agents, car manufacturers, dealers and importers, cooperative sales channels, and private subscribers. The Telematics Products segment offers Base Site, a radio receiver that includes a processor and a data computation unit to collect and send data to and from transponders, and to control centers; Control Center, a center consisting of software used to collect data from various base sites, conduct location calculations, and transmit location data to various customers and law enforcement agencies; navigation and tracking devices installed in vehicles; and SMART, a portable transmitter installed in vehicles that sends a signal to the base site enabling the location of vehicles, equipment, or an individual. The company was incorporated in 1994 and is headquartered in Azor, Israel.

About Halma

Halma plc, together its subsidiaries, provides technology solutions in the safety, health, and environmental markets in the United States, Mainland Europe, the United Kingdom, the Asia Pacific, Africa, the Middle East, and internationally. It operates through three segments: Safety, Environmental & Analysis, and Medical. The Safety segment provides fire safety, fire detection and fire suppression; safe movement in public, commercial, and industrial spaces; elevator safety; communications in emergencies; control of access in potentially hazardous industrial and commercial environments; electrical safety; and the safe management of pipelines and storage assets solutions. This segment serves shops and restaurants, healthcare facilities, and offices and stadiums; industrial and logistics assets; public spaces and critical infrastructure; and aerospace, and rail and automotive markets. The Environmental & Analysis segment offers optical, optoelectronic, and spectral imaging systems; environmental monitoring, water and waste water analysis and treatment, gas analysis and detection, and optical analysis systems. It serves the optical analysis, water analysis and treatment, gas detection, and environmental monitoring markets. The Medical segment provides critical fluidic components used by medical diagnostics and original equipment manufacturers; components, devices and systems that provide information and analytics to understand patient health and enable providers to make decisions across the continuum of care; technologies and solutions to enable in-vitro diagnostic systems and life-science discoveries and development; and technologies that enable treatment across clinical specialties. This segment serves the life sciences, health assessment and analytics, and therapeutic solutions market. The company was incorporated in 1894 and is headquartered in Amersham, the United Kingdom.