Head-To-Head Review: Visteon (NASDAQ:VC) and QuantumScape (NYSE:QS)

QuantumScape (NYSE:QS) and Visteon (NASDAQ:VC) are both mid-cap consumer discretionary companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, profitability, risk, valuation, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership and dividends.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current recommendations for QuantumScape and Visteon, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
QuantumScape	1	5	0	0	1.83
Visteon	0	5	10	0	2.67

QuantumScape presently has a consensus price target of $9.47, suggesting a potential upside of 64.35%. Visteon has a consensus price target of $135.54, suggesting a potential upside of 28.40%. Given QuantumScape’s higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe QuantumScape is more favorable than Visteon.

Volatility & Risk

QuantumScape has a beta of 2.67, suggesting that its share price is 167% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Visteon has a beta of 1.29, suggesting that its share price is 29% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares QuantumScape and Visteon’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
QuantumScape	N/A	-39.90%	-35.31%
Visteon	5.58%	14.61%	7.07%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

29.9% of QuantumScape shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 99.7% of Visteon shares are owned by institutional investors. 3.9% of QuantumScape shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 2.0% of Visteon shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares QuantumScape and Visteon”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
QuantumScape	N/A	N/A	-$477.86 million	($0.67)	-8.60
Visteon	$3.78 billion	0.75	$201.00 million	$7.65	13.80

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

Summary

Visteon beats QuantumScape on 10 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About QuantumScape

QuantumScape Corporation, a research and development stage company, focuses on the development and commercialization of solid-state lithium-metal batteries for electric vehicles and other applications. The company was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in San Jose, California.

About Visteon

Visteon Corporation, an automotive technology company, designs, manufactures, and sells automotive electronics and connected car solutions for vehicle manufacturers worldwide. The company provides instrument clusters, including analog gauge clusters for 2-D and 3-D display-based devices; information displays that integrate a range of user interface technologies and graphics management capabilities, such as active privacy, TrueColor enhancement, local dimming, cameras, optics, haptic feedback, and light effects; and infotainment and connected car solutions, including scalable Android infotainment for seamless connectivity, as well as onboard artificial intelligence-based voice assistants with natural language understanding. It offers wired and wireless battery management systems; power electronics units; and telematics control units to enable secure connected car services, software updates, and data. In addition, the company provides SmartCore, an automotive-grade, integrated domain controller; SmartCore Runtime, a middleware enabling communication between domains and apps to be shown on any display; SmartCore Studio, a PC-based configuration tool to generate hypervisor configurations; and body domain modules, which integrate various functions, such as central gateway, body controls, comfort, and vehicle access solutions, into one device. Visteon Corporation was incorporated in 2000 and is headquartered in Van Buren, Michigan.