Kratos Defense & Security Solutions (KTOS) & The Competition Critical Review

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions (NASDAQ:KTOS) is one of 229 public companies in the “Aerospace & Defense” industry, but how does it contrast to its peers? We will compare Kratos Defense & Security Solutions to related businesses based on the strength of its earnings, dividends, institutional ownership, valuation, risk, profitability and analyst recommendations.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Kratos Defense & Security Solutions and its peers top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Kratos Defense & Security Solutions	$1.52 billion	$22.00 million	196.41
Kratos Defense & Security Solutions Competitors	$8.43 billion	$569.01 million	23.87

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions’ peers have higher revenue and earnings than Kratos Defense & Security Solutions. Kratos Defense & Security Solutions is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Volatility and Risk

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions has a beta of 1.18, indicating that its stock price is 18% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Kratos Defense & Security Solutions’ peers have a beta of 1.31, indicating that their average stock price is 31% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

75.9% of Kratos Defense & Security Solutions shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 49.5% of shares of all “Aerospace & Defense” companies are owned by institutional investors. 1.5% of Kratos Defense & Security Solutions shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 11.9% of shares of all “Aerospace & Defense” companies are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Kratos Defense & Security Solutions and its peers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Kratos Defense & Security Solutions	2.03%	3.07%	2.55%
Kratos Defense & Security Solutions Competitors	-278.19%	-46.45%	-4.02%

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings for Kratos Defense & Security Solutions and its peers, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Kratos Defense & Security Solutions	2	1	20	3	2.92
Kratos Defense & Security Solutions Competitors	2154	8251	12740	579	2.50

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions currently has a consensus target price of $83.65, indicating a potential upside of 150.52%. As a group, “Aerospace & Defense” companies have a potential upside of 33.94%. Given Kratos Defense & Security Solutions’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts clearly believe Kratos Defense & Security Solutions is more favorable than its peers.

Summary

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions beats its peers on 9 of the 13 factors compared.

About Kratos Defense & Security Solutions

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. engages in the provision of mission critical products, services and solutions for United States national security priorities. It operates through the Kratos Government Solutions (KGS) and Unmanned Systems (US) segments. The KGS segment consists of an aggregation of KGS operating segments, including microwave electronic products, space, satellite and cyber, training solutions. The US segment refers to the unmanned aerial, unmanned ground, unmanned seaborne and related command, control and communications system businesses. The company was founded on December 19, 1994, and is headquartered in Round Rock, TX.