Head-To-Head Survey: Yaskawa Electric (OTCMKTS:YASKY) and Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS)

Yaskawa Electric (OTCMKTS:YASKY) and Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS) are both mid-cap computer and technology companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, valuation, profitability, dividends, earnings, institutional ownership and risk.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Yaskawa Electric and Littelfuse”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Yaskawa Electric	$3.62 billion	2.41	$235.26 million	$1.81	37.20
Littelfuse	$2.39 billion	4.16	-$71.70 million	($2.90)	-136.05

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

Institutional & Insider Ownership

96.1% of Littelfuse shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.0% of Littelfuse shares are owned 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 ratings for Yaskawa Electric and Littelfuse, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Yaskawa Electric	0	2	2	2	3.00
Littelfuse	1	1	2	1	2.60

Littelfuse has a consensus target price of $374.00, indicating a potential downside of 5.21%. Given Littelfuse’s higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Littelfuse is more favorable than Yaskawa Electric.

Profitability

This table compares Yaskawa Electric and Littelfuse’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Yaskawa Electric	6.50%	7.51%	4.47%
Littelfuse	-3.00%	10.53%	6.65%

Dividends

Yaskawa Electric pays an annual dividend of $0.56 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.8%. Littelfuse pays an annual dividend of $3.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.8%. Yaskawa Electric pays out 30.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Littelfuse pays out -103.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Littelfuse has increased its dividend for 15 consecutive years.

Risk and Volatility

Yaskawa Electric has a beta of 1.12, suggesting that its stock price is 12% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Littelfuse has a beta of 1.4, suggesting that its stock price is 40% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Littelfuse beats Yaskawa Electric on 9 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Yaskawa Electric

YASKAWA Electric Corporation engages in motion control, robotics, system engineering, and other businesses worldwide. It manufactures and sells various AC drives, including general purpose AC drives, specific purpose AC drives, AC Drive for systems, regenerative energy saving units, and PM motors for use in household appliances, such as air conditioners and refrigerators; social infrastructures comprising elevators, escalators, trains, cranes, fans, and pumps; and factories that manufacture printing machinery, textile machinery, rubber machinery, and other materials. The company also offers rotary servo motors, direct drive servo motors, linear motors/linear sliders, machine controllers, positioning sensor encoders, and servo amplifiers for use in industrial robots, semiconductor manufacturing apparatus, machine tools, flat panel display manufacturing equipment, and metal working machines; and arc and spot welding, handling/assembling, collaborative, biomedical, palletizing, press handling, sealing/cutting/laser machining, deburring, painting, glass substrates transfer, and semiconductor wafer transfer robots for use in semiconductor wafer conveyance, arc welding, spot welding, handling, assembly, and palletizing applications. In addition, it provides industrial system electrical products, such as medium-voltage AC drives, system use AC drives, and system controllers for use in iron and steel systems, water and wastewater treatment, crane, and paper-making/film/port cargo handling/fiber/printing applications. Further, the company offers equipment for energy saving and creation comprising PV inverters, systems for large wind turbines, control equipment for small-scale power generation, and motor drive systems for use in photovoltaic power generation, large-scale wind power generation, small-scale power generation, and electric vehicles. The company was founded in 1915 and is headquartered in Kitakyushu, Japan.

About Littelfuse

Littelfuse, Inc. designs, manufactures, and sells electronic components, modules, and subassemblies in the Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe. The company operates through Electronic, Transportation, and Industrial segments. The Electronics segment offers fuses and fuse accessories, positive temperature coefficient resettable fuses, electromechanical switches and interconnect solutions, polymer electrostatic discharge suppressors, varistors, reed switch based magnetic sensing products, and gas discharge tubes; and discrete transient voltage suppressor (TVS) diodes, TVS diode arrays, protection and switching thyristors, metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors and diodes, and insulated gate bipolar transistors. This segment serves industrial motor drives and power conversion, automotive electronics, electric vehicle and related charging infrastructure, aerospace, power supplies, data centers, telecommunications, medical devices, alternative energy, building and home automation, appliances, and mobile electronics markets. The Transportation segment provides blade, resettable, and high-current and high-voltage fuses, as well as battery cable protectors; fuses, switches, relays, circuit breakers, and power distribution modules; and sensor products. This segment serves heavy-duty truck, construction, agriculture, material handling, and marine. The Industrial segment offers industrial fuses, protection relays, contactors, transformers, residual current devices, ground fault circuit interrupters, residual current monitors, arc fault detection devices, and temperature sensors for use in renewable energy and energy storage systems, electric vehicle infrastructure, HVAC systems, industrial safety, non-residential construction, MRO, mining, and factory automation. It sells its products through distributors, direct sales force, and manufacturers' representatives. Littelfuse, Inc. was founded in 1927 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.