Mercury Systems (NASDAQ:MRCY) versus Curtiss-Wright (NYSE:CW) Head to Head Comparison

Curtiss-Wright (NYSE:CW) and Mercury Systems (NASDAQ:MRCY) are both aerospace companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, valuation, institutional ownership, dividends, earnings, profitability and risk.

Volatility and Risk

Curtiss-Wright has a beta of 0.86, meaning that its share price is 14% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Mercury Systems has a beta of 0.83, meaning that its share price is 17% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Curtiss-Wright and Mercury Systems”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Curtiss-Wright	$3.50 billion	7.55	$484.23 million	$13.65	52.40
Mercury Systems	$912.02 million	6.06	-$37.90 million	($0.24)	-383.46

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

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations for Curtiss-Wright and Mercury Systems, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Curtiss-Wright	0	3	4	0	2.57
Mercury Systems	2	3	3	2	2.50

Curtiss-Wright presently has a consensus price target of $738.83, suggesting a potential upside of 3.30%. Mercury Systems has a consensus price target of $89.89, suggesting a potential downside of 2.33%. Given Curtiss-Wright’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Curtiss-Wright is more favorable than Mercury Systems.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

82.7% of Curtiss-Wright shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 96.0% of Mercury Systems shares are held by institutional investors. 0.5% of Curtiss-Wright shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.4% of Mercury Systems shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Curtiss-Wright and Mercury Systems’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Curtiss-Wright	14.17%	20.00%	10.01%
Mercury Systems	-1.46%	2.22%	1.32%

Summary

Curtiss-Wright beats Mercury Systems on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Curtiss-Wright

Curtiss-Wright Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides engineered products, solutions, and services mainly to aerospace and defense, commercial power, process, and industrial markets worldwide. It operates through three segments: Aerospace & Industrial, Defense Electronics, and Naval & Power. The Aerospace & Industrial segment offers industrial and specialty vehicle products, such as power management electronics, traction inverters, transmission shifters, and control systems; sensors, controls, and electro-mechanical actuation components used on commercial and military aircraft; and surface technology services including shot peening, laser peening, and engineered coatings. The Defense Electronics segment provides commercial off-the-shelf embedded computing board-level modules and processing equipment, data acquisition and flight test instrumentation equipment, integrated subsystems, instrumentation and control systems, tactical communications solutions; and electronic stabilization products, and weapons handling systems; avionics and electronics; flight test equipment; and aircraft data management solutions. The Naval & Power segment offers main coolant pumps, power-dense compact motors, generators, steam turbines, valves, and secondary propulsion systems; energy absorbers, retractable hook cable systems, net-stanchion systems and mobile systems to support fixed land-based arresting systems; hardware, valves, fastening systems, specialized containment doors, airlock hatches, and spent fuel management products; reactor coolant pumps and control rod drive mechanisms for commercial nuclear power plants, as well as various nuclear reactor technologies. This segment furnishes severe-service valve technologies and services, heat exchanger repair, and piping test and isolation products, and offers ship repair and maintenance for the U.S. navy. Curtiss-Wright Corporation was incorporated in 1929 and is headquartered in Davidson, North Carolina.

About Mercury Systems

Mercury Systems, Inc., a technology company, manufactures and sells components, products, modules, and subsystems for aerospace and defense industries in the United States, Europe, and the Asia Pacific. Its products and solutions are deployed in approximately 300 programs with 25 defense contractors and commercial aviation customers. The company offers components, including power amplifiers and limiters, switches, oscillators, filters, equalizers, digital and analog converters, chips, monolithic microwave integrated circuits, and memory and storage devices; modules and sub-assemblies, such as embedded processing boards, switched fabrics and boards, digital receivers, multi-chip modules, integrated radio frequency and microwave multi-function assemblies, tuners, and transceivers, as well as graphics and video boards; and integrated subsystems. It also designs and develops digital radio frequency memory units for various modern electronic warfare applications; radar environment simulation and test systems for defense and intelligence applications; and signals intelligence payloads and EO/IR technologies for small UAV platforms, as well as onboard UAV processor systems for real-time wide area motion imagery. The company was formerly known as Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. and changed its name to Mercury Systems, Inc. in November 2012. The company was incorporated in 1981 and is headquartered in Andover, Massachusetts.