Casella Waste Systems (NASDAQ:CWST) and Pentair (NYSE:PNR) Financial Review

Casella Waste Systems (NASDAQ:CWST) and Pentair (NYSE:PNR) are both business services companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, analyst recommendations, profitability, institutional ownership, valuation, risk and dividends.

Profitability

This table compares Casella Waste Systems and Pentair’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Casella Waste Systems	0.64%	4.97%	2.40%
Pentair	14.86%	21.62%	11.88%

Volatility and Risk

Casella Waste Systems has a beta of 0.84, suggesting that its stock price is 16% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Pentair has a beta of 1.08, suggesting that its stock price is 8% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

99.5% of Casella Waste Systems shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 92.4% of Pentair shares are held by institutional investors. 3.8% of Casella Waste Systems shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.5% of Pentair shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for Casella Waste Systems and Pentair, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Casella Waste Systems	0	2	5	1	2.88
Pentair	1	3	10	2	2.81

Casella Waste Systems currently has a consensus price target of $123.17, suggesting a potential upside of 24.97%. Pentair has a consensus price target of $114.36, suggesting a potential upside of 6.38%. Given Casella Waste Systems’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts plainly believe Casella Waste Systems is more favorable than Pentair.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Casella Waste Systems and Pentair”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Casella Waste Systems	$1.56 billion	4.02	$13.54 million	$0.18	547.56
Pentair	$4.08 billion	4.32	$625.40 million	$3.66	29.37

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

Summary

Pentair beats Casella Waste Systems on 10 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Casella Waste Systems

Casella Waste Systems, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as a vertically integrated solid waste services company in the United States. It offers resource management services primarily in the areas of solid waste collection and disposal, transfer, recycling, and organics services to residential, commercial, municipal, institutional, and industrial customers. The company provides non-hazardous solid waste services, including collections, transfer stations, recycling, and disposal operations. In addition, it markets materials, including fibers, corrugated cardboard, newsprint, plastics, glass, ferrous, and aluminum metals. Casella Waste Systems, Inc. was founded in 1975 and is headquartered in Rutland, Vermont.

About Pentair

Pentair plc provides various water solutions in the United States, Western Europe, China, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Australia, Canada, and Japan. The company operates through three segments: Flow, Water Solutions, and Pool. The Flow segment designs, manufactures, and sells fluid treatment and pump products and systems, including pressure vessels, gas recovery solutions, membrane bioreactors, wastewater reuse systems and advanced membrane filtration, separation systems, water disposal pumps, water supply pumps, fluid transfer pumps, turbine pumps, solid handling pumps, and agricultural spray nozzles for fluid delivery, ion exchange, desalination, food and beverage, separation technologies in the oil and gas industry, residential and municipal wells, water treatment, wastewater solids handling, pressure boosting, circulation and transfer, fire suppression, flood control, agricultural irrigation, and crop spray in residential, commercial, and industrial markets. The Water Solutions segment provides commercial and residential water treatment products and systems, including pressure tanks, control valves, activated carbon products, commercial ice machines, conventional filtration products, and point-of-entry and point-of-use water treatment systems, as well as installation and preventative services for use in residential whole home water filtration, drinking water filtration, and water softening solutions, as well as commercial total water management and filtration in foodservice operations. The Pool segment provides residential and commercial pool equipment and accessories comprising pumps, filters, heaters, lights, automatic controls, automatic cleaners, maintenance equipment, and pool accessories for applications in residential and commercial pool maintenance, pool repair, renovation, service, and construction and aquaculture solutions. Pentair plc was founded in 1966 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.