ESS Tech (NYSE:GWH – Get Free Report) and Vertiv (NYSE:VRT – Get Free Report) are both industrials companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, analyst recommendations, dividends, profitability, risk and valuation.
Risk and Volatility
ESS Tech has a beta of 1.46, suggesting that its stock price is 46% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Vertiv has a beta of 2.05, suggesting that its stock price is 105% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Analyst Recommendations
This is a summary of recent ratings and price targets for ESS Tech and Vertiv, as provided by MarketBeat.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| ESS Tech | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2.00 |
| Vertiv | 1 | 5 | 23 | 2 | 2.84 |
Profitability
This table compares ESS Tech and Vertiv’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| ESS Tech | N/A | -1,934.84% | -156.40% |
| Vertiv | 15.09% | 50.47% | 15.87% |
Institutional & Insider Ownership
46.8% of ESS Tech shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 89.9% of Vertiv shares are held by institutional investors. 0.7% of ESS Tech shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.1% of Vertiv shares are held 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.
Earnings and Valuation
This table compares ESS Tech and Vertiv”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| ESS Tech | $1.58 million | 3.27 | -$63.44 million | ($2.93) | -0.05 |
| Vertiv | $10.23 billion | 9.01 | $1.33 billion | $4.42 | 54.18 |
Vertiv has higher revenue and earnings than ESS Tech. ESS Tech is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Vertiv, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Summary
Vertiv beats ESS Tech on 14 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.
About ESS Tech
ESS Tech, Inc., an energy storage company, designs and produces iron flow batteries for commercial and utility-scale energy storage applications worldwide. It offers energy storage products, which include Energy Warehouse, a behind-the-meter solution; and Energy Center, a front-of-the-meter solution. The company was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Wilsonville, Oregon.
About Vertiv
Vertiv Holdings Co, together with its subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, and services critical digital infrastructure technologies and life cycle services for data centers, communication networks, and commercial and industrial environments in the Americas, the Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. It offers AC and DC power management products, switchgear and busbar products, thermal management products, integrated rack systems, modular solutions, and management systems for monitoring and controlling digital infrastructure that are integral to the technologies used for various services, including e-commerce, online banking, file sharing, video on-demand, energy storage, wireless communications, Internet of Things, and online gaming. The company also provides lifecycle management services, predictive analytics, and professional services for deploying, maintaining, and optimizing its products and their related systems; and preventative maintenance, acceptance testing, engineering and consulting, performance assessments, remote monitoring, training, spare parts, and digital critical infrastructure software services. It offers its products primarily under the Vertiv, Liebert, NetSure, Geist, E&I, Powerbar, and Avocent brands. The company serves cloud services, financial services, healthcare, transportation, manufacturing, energy, education, government, social media, and retail industries through a network of direct sales professionals, independent sales representatives, channel partners, and original equipment manufacturers. Vertiv Holdings Co is headquartered in Westerville, Ohio.
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