Cooper Companies (NASDAQ:COO) vs. CONMED (NYSE:CNMD) Head to Head Contrast

Cooper Companies (NASDAQ:COO) and CONMED (NYSE:CNMD) are both medical companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, institutional ownership, risk, dividends, analyst recommendations, earnings and valuation.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and target prices for Cooper Companies and CONMED, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Cooper Companies	2	2	10	1	2.67
CONMED	1	4	1	0	2.00

Cooper Companies currently has a consensus target price of $84.77, indicating a potential upside of 20.93%. CONMED has a consensus target price of $54.00, indicating a potential upside of 22.93%. Given CONMED’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe CONMED is more favorable than Cooper Companies.

Risk and Volatility

Cooper Companies has a beta of 1.02, meaning that its share price is 2% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, CONMED has a beta of 1.15, meaning that its share price is 15% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Cooper Companies and CONMED’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Cooper Companies	10.08%	9.82%	6.54%
CONMED	8.31%	14.43%	6.05%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

24.4% of Cooper Companies shares are held by institutional investors. 2.0% of Cooper Companies shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 3.1% of CONMED shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Cooper Companies and CONMED”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Cooper Companies	$4.05 billion	3.44	$392.30 million	$2.03	34.53
CONMED	$1.33 billion	1.03	$132.42 million	$2.05	21.43

Cooper Companies has higher revenue and earnings than CONMED. CONMED is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Cooper Companies, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Cooper Companies beats CONMED on 10 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Cooper Companies

The Cooper Companies, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, develops, manufactures, and markets contact lens wearers. The company operates in two segments, CooperVision and CooperSurgical. The CooperVision segment provides spherical lense, including lenses that correct near and farsightedness; and toric and multifocal lenses comprising lenses correcting vision challenges, such as astigmatism, presbyopia, and myopia in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific. The CooperSurgical segment focuses on family and women's health care, which provides fertility products and services, medical devices, and contraception, as well as cryostorage, such as cord blood and cord tissue storage to health care professionals and patients worldwide. It offers surgical and office products, including endosee endometrial imaging products, fetal pillow cephalic elevation devices for use in cesarean sections, illuminated speculum products, lone star retractor systems, loop electrosurgical excision procedure products, mara water ablation systems, paragard contraceptive IUDs, point-of-care, and uterine positioning products, as well as cryostorage, such as cord blood and cord tissue storage; fertility products and services, such as fertility consumables and equipment, donor gamete services, and genomic services, including genetic testing. The company sells its products to distributors, group purchasing organizations, eye care and health care professionals, including independent practices, corporate retailers, hospitals and clinics, and authorized resellers. The Cooper Companies, Inc. was founded in 1958 and is headquartered in San Ramon, California.

About CONMED

CONMED Corporation, a medical technology company, develops, manufactures, and sells surgical devices and related equipment for surgical procedures worldwide. The company offers orthopedic surgery products, including BioBrace, TruShot with Y-Knot All-In-One Soft Tissue Fixation System, Y-knot All-Suture Anchors, and Agro Knotless Suture Anchors, which provide clinical solutions to orthopedic surgeons for the augmentation and repair of soft tissue injuries, as well as provides supporting products that enable surgeons to perform minimally invasive sports medicine surgeries. It markets orthopedic surgery products under the Hall, CONMED Linvatec, Concept, and Shutt brands. The company also provides battery-powered and autoclavable bone power tool systems for use in orthopedic, arthroscopic, oral/maxillofacial, podiatric, spinal, and cardiothoracic surgeries under Hall surgical brand name. In addition, it offers general surgery products, including clinical insufflation systems under AirSeal brand; smoke removal devices under Buffalo Filter brand; endomechanical products, such as tissue retrieval bags, trocars, suction irrigation devices, graspers, scissors, and dissectors used in minimally invasive surgeries; and electrosurgical solution comprising monopolar and bipolar generators, argon beam coagulation generators, handpieces, smoke management systems and other accessories. Further, the company provides endoscopic technologies, including therapeutic and diagnostic products for use in gastroenterology procedures, and products for the treatment of diseases of the dilatation, hemostasis, biliary, structure management, and infection prevention and patient monitoring, including ECG and EEG electrodes, and cardiac defibrillation pads. It markets its products directly to hospitals, surgery centers, and other healthcare institutions, as well as through medical specialty distributors. CONMED Corporation was incorporated in 1970 and is headquartered in Largo, Florida.