Reviewing Mueller Water Products (NYSE:MWA) and Keyence (OTCMKTS:KYCCF)

Mueller Water Products (NYSE:MWA) and Keyence (OTCMKTS:KYCCF) are both industrials companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, risk, earnings, dividends and valuation.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for Mueller Water Products and Keyence, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Mueller Water Products	2	1	2	0	2.00
Keyence	0	0	2	2	3.50

Mueller Water Products currently has a consensus price target of $27.00, suggesting a potential upside of 18.63%. Given Mueller Water Products’ higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Mueller Water Products is more favorable than Keyence.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

91.7% of Mueller Water Products shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.1% of Mueller Water Products shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Mueller Water Products and Keyence’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Mueller Water Products	15.02%	23.55%	13.12%
Keyence	N/A	N/A	N/A

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Mueller Water Products and Keyence”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Mueller Water Products	$1.43 billion	2.49	$191.70 million	$1.41	16.14
Keyence	$7.31 billion	16.44	$2.78 billion	$3.60	137.62

Keyence has higher revenue and earnings than Mueller Water Products. Mueller Water Products is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Keyence, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Risk and Volatility

Mueller Water Products has a beta of 0.99, suggesting that its share price is 1% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Keyence has a beta of 1.39, suggesting that its share price is 39% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Keyence beats Mueller Water Products on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Mueller Water Products

Mueller Water Products, Inc. manufactures and markets products and services for the transmission, distribution, and measurement of water used by municipalities, and the residential and non-residential construction industries in the United States, Israel, and internationally. It operates in two segments, Water Flow Solutions and Water Management Solutions. The Water Flow Solutions segment provides valves for water systems, such as iron gate, butterfly, tapping, check, knife, plug, and ball valves, which are used to control distribution and transmission of potable water and non-potable water, as well as in water transmission or distribution, water treatment facilities, or industrial applications. It also offers service brass products. The Water Management Solutions segment offers dry-barrel and wet-barrel fire hydrants for water infrastructure development; fire protection systems, and water infrastructure repair and replacement projects; pipe repair products, such as couplings, grips, and clamps used to repair leaks; residential, fire line, and commercial water metering products, systems, and services; water leak detection and pipe condition assessment products and services; machines and tools for tapping, drilling, extracting, installing, and stopping-off; gas valve products for use in gas distribution systems; and intelligent water solutions, including pressure control valves, advanced pressure management, network analytics, event management, and date logging. It sells its products under the Canada Valve, Centurion, Ez-Max, Hydro Gate, Hydro-Guard, HYMAX, HYMAX VERSA, Jones, Krausz, Milliken, Mueller, Pratt, Pratt Industrial, Repamax, Repaflex, Singer, Echologics, Echoshore, ePulse, Hersey, LeakFinderRT, LeakFinderST, LeakListener, LeakTuner, Mi.Echo, Mi.Net, Mueller Systems, Sentryx, and U.S. Pipe Valve and Hydrant brands. Mueller Water Products, Inc. was founded in 1857 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

About Keyence

Keyence Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the development, manufacture, and sale of factory automation solutions in Japan, China, the United States, and internationally. The company offers photoelectric, fiber optic, laser, positioning, vision, specific solution, and inductive proximity sensors, as well as network communication units. It also provides measurement sensors, such as laser displacement and profiler, optical/laser micrometer, inductive displacement sensor, 3D interference measurement, spectral interference displacement, and contact displacement/LVDT sensors; and measurement systems, including optical comparators, 3D scanners, multisensor measurement, and CMM/laser trackers. In addition, the company provides safety products comprising safety laser scanners, light curtains, interlock switches, and controllers; and pressure, flow, level, and temperature sensors for monitoring equipment processes. Further, it offers static eliminators/ionizers and electrostatic sensors, which protect workers, machinery, and products from the damaging effects of electrostatic charge; vision systems and sensors; and programmable logic controllers, servo motor and system, and other controls that are used for machine control applications. Additionally, the company provides barcode and handheld scanners; laser marking systems/laser markers, UV laser coder, and industrial continuous inkjet printers; digital, 3D surface profilers, elemental analyzers, optical profilometers, and fluorescence microscopes; data loggers; and mobile/ handheld computers. It serves customers in automotive, semiconductors/LCDs, electronic devices, food/pharmaceutical, medical technology, logistics, metals, plastics, and films/sheets industries. Keyence Corporation was founded in 1972 and is headquartered in Osaka, Japan.