Reviewing Accuray (NASDAQ:ARAY) and Mesa Laboratories (NASDAQ:MLAB)

Accuray (NASDAQ:ARAY) and Mesa Laboratories (NASDAQ:MLAB) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, institutional ownership, profitability, risk, earnings, analyst recommendations and valuation.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

64.1% of Accuray shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 90.6% of Mesa Laboratories shares are held by institutional investors. 4.4% of Accuray shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 4.9% of Mesa Laboratories shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current recommendations and price targets for Accuray and Mesa Laboratories, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Accuray	1	0	1	0	2.00
Mesa Laboratories	1	2	0	0	1.67

Accuray presently has a consensus price target of $4.00, suggesting a potential upside of 284.62%. Mesa Laboratories has a consensus price target of $67.00, suggesting a potential downside of 16.78%. Given Accuray’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Accuray is more favorable than Mesa Laboratories.

Profitability

This table compares Accuray and Mesa Laboratories’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Accuray	-0.35%	-4.92%	-0.58%
Mesa Laboratories	-0.26%	24.49%	9.03%

Volatility and Risk

Accuray has a beta of 1.39, suggesting that its share price is 39% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Mesa Laboratories has a beta of 0.89, suggesting that its share price is 11% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Accuray and Mesa Laboratories”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Accuray	$450.90 million	0.26	-$1.59 million	($0.16)	-6.50
Mesa Laboratories	$245.26 million	1.81	-$1.97 million	($0.32)	-251.59

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

Summary

Accuray beats Mesa Laboratories on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Accuray

Accuray Incorporated designs, develops, manufactures, and sells radiosurgery and radiation therapy systems for the treatment of tumors in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, the Middle East, India, Africa, Japan, and China. It offers the CyberKnife platform, a robotic stereotactic radiosurgery and stereotactic body radiation therapy system used for the treatment of primary and metastatic tumors outside the brain, including tumors on or near the spine and in the breast, kidney, liver, lung, pancreas, and prostate. The company also provides the TomoTherapy platform, including the Radixact System, which allows for integrated radiation treatment planning, delivery, and data management, enabling clinicians to deliver ultra-precise treatments to approximately 50 patients per day; iDMS data management system, a fully integrated treatment planning and data management systems; and Accuray precision treatment planning system, a treatment planning and data management systems. In addition, it offers post-contract customer support, installation, training, and other professional services. The company primarily markets its products directly to customers, including hospitals and stand-alone treatment facilities through its sales organization, as well as to customers through sales agents and group purchasing organizations in the United States; and to customers directly and through distributors and sales agents internationally. Accuray Incorporated was incorporated in 1990 and is headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin.

About Mesa Laboratories

Mesa Laboratories, Inc. develops, designs, manufactures, sells, and services life sciences tools and quality control products and services in North America, Europe, the Asia Pacific, and internationally. The Sterilization and Disinfection Control segment offers biological, chemical, and cleaning indicators, used to assess the effectiveness of sterilization decontamination, disinfection, and cleaning processes in the pharmaceutical, medical device, and healthcare industries. This segment also provides testing and laboratory services to the dental and pharmaceutical industries. The Clinical Genomics segment offers MassARRAY, a genetic analysis tool system, and related consumables, including chips, panels, and chemical reagent solutions used by clinical labs to analyze DNA samples for inherited genetic disease testing, pharmacogenetics, oncology testing, infectious disease testing, doping and toxicology testing, and other differentiated applications for use in research. The Biopharmaceutical Development segment provides automated systems, such as Gyrolab xPand and Gyrolab xPlore hardware and software, Gyrolab Bioaffy consumable microfluidic disks, Gyrolab kits and Rexxip buffers for protein analysis; PurePep Chorus and Symphony instruments for peptide synthesis; and PurePep EasyClean products for purifying peptides. The Calibration Solutions segment offers quality control products to measure and calibrate critical parameters in applications, such as environmental and process monitoring, dialysis, gas flow, air quality, and torque testing in medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturing, laboratory, and hospital environments. This segment’s products include continuous monitoring systems, dialysate meters and consumables, data loggers, gas flow calibration and air sampling equipment, and torque testing systems, offered under DialyGuard, ViewPoint, DataTrace, DryCal, and BGI brands. The company was incorporated in 1982 and is headquartered in Lakewood, Colorado.