Analyzing GSI Technology (NASDAQ:GSIT) & Veeco Instruments (NASDAQ:VECO)

Veeco Instruments (NASDAQ:VECO) and GSI Technology (NASDAQ:GSIT) are both technology companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, institutional ownership, profitability, analyst recommendations, risk, valuation and dividends.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Veeco Instruments and GSI Technology, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Veeco Instruments	0	5	1	0	2.17
GSI Technology	1	0	0	0	1.00

Veeco Instruments presently has a consensus target price of $49.33, suggesting a potential upside of 4.41%. Given Veeco Instruments’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts plainly believe Veeco Instruments is more favorable than GSI Technology.

Profitability

This table compares Veeco Instruments and GSI Technology’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Veeco Instruments	3.40%	3.52%	2.32%
GSI Technology	-62.90%	-21.39%	-17.73%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

98.5% of Veeco Instruments shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 33.2% of GSI Technology shares are held by institutional investors. 2.7% of Veeco Instruments shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 16.6% of GSI Technology shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Risk and Volatility

Veeco Instruments has a beta of 1.38, suggesting that its stock price is 38% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, GSI Technology has a beta of 2.1, suggesting that its stock price is 110% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Veeco Instruments and GSI Technology”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Veeco Instruments	$664.29 million	4.35	$35.39 million	$0.36	131.25
GSI Technology	$25.15 million	9.29	-$13.25 million	($0.46)	-13.22

Veeco Instruments has higher revenue and earnings than GSI Technology. GSI Technology is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Veeco Instruments, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Veeco Instruments beats GSI Technology on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Veeco Instruments

Veeco Instruments Inc., together with its subsidiaries, develops, manufactures, sells, and supports semiconductor and thin film process equipment primarily to make electronic devices in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, China, Rest of the Asia-Pacific, and internationally. The company offers laser annealing, ion beam deposition and etch, metal organic chemical vapor deposition, single wafer wet processing and surface preparation, molecular beam epitaxy, advanced packaging lithography, atomic layer deposition, and other deposition systems. Its process equipment systems are used in the production of a range of microelectronic components, including logic, dynamic random-access memory, photonics devices, power electronics, radio frequency filters and amplifiers, magnetic heads for hard disk drives, and other semiconductor devices. In addition, the company markets and sells its products to integrated device manufacturers and foundries; outsourced semiconductor assembly and test companies; and hard disk drive and photonics manufacturers, as well as research centers and universities. Veeco Instruments Inc. was founded in 1945 and is headquartered in Plainview, New York.

About GSI Technology

GSI Technology, Inc. designs, develops, and markets semiconductor memory solutions to networking, industrial, medical, aerospace, and military customers in the United States, China, Singapore, Germany, the Netherlands, and internationally. It offers associative processing unit products, which are focuses on applications using similarity search in visual search queries for ecommerce, computer vision, drug discovery, cyber security, and service markets. The company also provides static random access memory (SRAM) products, such as SyncBurst for microprocessor cache and other applications; No Bus Turnaround SRAMs to address the needs of networking and telecom applications; SigmaQuad and SigmaDDR products for density and random transaction rate requirements of networking and telecom applications; Low Latency DRAMs, a solution for advanced data networking applications; Asynchronous, a main memory for small cache-less embedded processors for industrial electronics, measurement systems and cost-sensitive networking equipment, and other applications; and specialty SRAMs. In addition, it offers radiation-hardened and radiation-tolerant SRAMs for military/defense and aerospace applications, such as networking satellites and missiles. The company's products are used as components in its original equipment manufacturer customers' products, including routers, switches, and other networking and telecommunications products; military and aerospace applications, such as radar and guidance systems and satellites; test and measurement applications consisting of high-speed testers; automotive applications comprising smart cruise control; medical applications, including ultrasound and CAT scan equipment; and audio/video processing. It markets its products through a network of independent sales representatives and distributors. GSI Technology, Inc. was incorporated in 1995 and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.