Reviewing Telos (NASDAQ:TLS) & Vertiv (NYSE:VRT)

Telos (NASDAQ:TLS) and Vertiv (NYSE:VRT) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, dividends, institutional ownership, profitability, risk, valuation and earnings.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Telos and Vertiv”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Telos	$108.27 million	4.47	-$52.52 million	($0.77)	-8.65
Vertiv	$8.01 billion	8.06	$495.80 million	$2.09	80.90

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

Volatility and Risk

Telos has a beta of 1.07, suggesting that its share price is 7% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Vertiv has a beta of 1.84, suggesting that its share price is 84% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

62.1% of Telos shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 89.9% of Vertiv shares are owned by institutional investors. 14.9% of Telos shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 5.0% of Vertiv shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for Telos and Vertiv, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Telos	1	3	1	0	2.00
Vertiv	1	8	18	1	2.68

Telos currently has a consensus target price of $4.83, indicating a potential downside of 27.43%. Vertiv has a consensus target price of $149.84, indicating a potential downside of 11.38%. Given Vertiv’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Vertiv is more favorable than Telos.

Profitability

This table compares Telos and Vertiv’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Telos	-47.55%	-36.19%	-28.00%
Vertiv	8.93%	51.64%	13.69%

Summary

Vertiv beats Telos on 14 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Telos

Telos Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides cyber, cloud, and enterprise security solutions worldwide. The company operates in two segments, Security Solutions and Secure Networks. It provides Xacta, a platform for enterprise cyber risk management and security compliance automation; and consulting, assessment and compliance, engineering and evaluation, operations, and penetration testing services. The company also offers Telos Automated Message Handling System, a web-based organizational message distribution and management for mission-critical communications used by military field operatives; and Telos Advanced Cyber Analytics solution, which is a threat feed source of global Internet Protocol addresses known to engage in potentially malicious activity, including mass scanning and generic opportunistic attacks; and Telos Ghost, a solution to eliminate cyberattack surfaces by obfuscating and encrypting data, masking user identity and location, and hiding network resources, as well as provides security and privacy for intelligence gathering, cyber threat protection, securing critical infrastructure, and protecting communications and applications. In addition, the company provides IDTrust360, an enterprise digital trusted identity risk platform for extending flexible hybrid cloud identity services; and ONYX, a touchless fingerprint biometric solution for mobile devices. Further, it offers secure mobility solutions that enable remote work and minimize operational and security concerns across and beyond the enterprise; and network management and defense services for operating, administrating, and defending complex enterprise networks and services for defensive cyber operations. It serves the United States federal government, large commercial businesses, state and local governments, and international customers. Telos Corporation was founded in 1968 and is headquartered in Ashburn, Virginia.

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.