Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) and Curtiss-Wright (NYSE:CW) Head to Head Comparison

Curtiss-Wright (NYSE:CW) and Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) are both large-cap industrials companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, risk, dividends, profitability, earnings, institutional ownership and valuation.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings for Curtiss-Wright and Lockheed Martin, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Curtiss-Wright	0	4	3	1	2.62
Lockheed Martin	1	10	10	1	2.50

Curtiss-Wright currently has a consensus target price of $717.50, suggesting a potential upside of 42.74%. Lockheed Martin has a consensus target price of $627.10, suggesting a potential upside of 13.61%. Given Curtiss-Wright’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Curtiss-Wright is more favorable than Lockheed Martin.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Curtiss-Wright and Lockheed Martin”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Curtiss-Wright	$3.50 billion	5.31	$484.23 million	$14.53	34.60
Lockheed Martin	$75.05 billion	1.70	$5.02 billion	$27.13	20.35

Lockheed Martin has higher revenue and earnings than Curtiss-Wright. Lockheed Martin is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Curtiss-Wright, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility & Risk

Curtiss-Wright has a beta of 0.88, suggesting that its stock price is 12% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Lockheed Martin has a beta of 0.09, suggesting that its stock price is 91% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

82.7% of Curtiss-Wright shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 74.2% of Lockheed Martin shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.5% of Curtiss-Wright shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.1% of Lockheed Martin shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Curtiss-Wright and Lockheed Martin’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Curtiss-Wright	14.81%	20.49%	10.19%
Lockheed Martin	8.16%	91.42%	11.02%

Dividends

Curtiss-Wright pays an annual dividend of $1.04 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.2%. Lockheed Martin pays an annual dividend of $13.80 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.5%. Curtiss-Wright pays out 7.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Lockheed Martin pays out 50.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Curtiss-Wright has increased its dividend for 8 consecutive years and Lockheed Martin has increased its dividend for 22 consecutive years. Lockheed Martin is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Summary

Curtiss-Wright beats Lockheed Martin on 9 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Curtiss-Wright

Curtiss-Wright Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides engineered products, solutions, and services mainly to aerospace and defense, commercial power, process, and industrial markets worldwide. It operates through three segments: Aerospace & Industrial, Defense Electronics, and Naval & Power. The Aerospace & Industrial segment offers industrial and specialty vehicle products, such as power management electronics, traction inverters, transmission shifters, and control systems; sensors, controls, and electro-mechanical actuation components used on commercial and military aircraft; and surface technology services including shot peening, laser peening, and engineered coatings. The Defense Electronics segment provides commercial off-the-shelf embedded computing board-level modules and processing equipment, data acquisition and flight test instrumentation equipment, integrated subsystems, instrumentation and control systems, tactical communications solutions; and electronic stabilization products, and weapons handling systems; avionics and electronics; flight test equipment; and aircraft data management solutions. The Naval & Power segment offers main coolant pumps, power-dense compact motors, generators, steam turbines, valves, and secondary propulsion systems; energy absorbers, retractable hook cable systems, net-stanchion systems and mobile systems to support fixed land-based arresting systems; hardware, valves, fastening systems, specialized containment doors, airlock hatches, and spent fuel management products; reactor coolant pumps and control rod drive mechanisms for commercial nuclear power plants, as well as various nuclear reactor technologies. This segment furnishes severe-service valve technologies and services, heat exchanger repair, and piping test and isolation products, and offers ship repair and maintenance for the U.S. navy. Curtiss-Wright Corporation was incorporated in 1929 and is headquartered in Davidson, North Carolina.

About Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin Corporation, a security and aerospace company, engages in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration, and sustainment of technology systems, products, and services worldwide. The company operates through Aeronautics, Missiles and Fire Control, Rotary and Mission Systems, and Space segments. The Aeronautics segment offers combat and air mobility aircraft, unmanned air vehicles, and related technologies. The Missiles and Fire Control segment provides air and missile defense systems; tactical missiles and air-to-ground precision strike weapon systems; logistics; fire control systems; mission operations support, readiness, engineering support, and integration services; manned and unmanned ground vehicles; and energy management solutions. The Rotary and Mission Systems segment offers military and commercial helicopters, surface ships, sea and land-based missile defense systems, radar systems, sea and air-based mission and combat systems, command and control mission solutions, cyber solutions, and simulation and training solutions. The Space segment offers satellites; space transportation systems; strategic, advanced strike, and defensive systems; and classified systems and services in support of national security systems. This segment also provides network-enabled situational awareness and integrates space and ground global systems to help its customers gather, analyze, and securely distribute critical intelligence data. It serves primarily serves the U.S. government, as well as foreign military sales contracted through the U.S. government. The company was founded in 1912 and is based in Bethesda, Maryland.