Gauzy (NASDAQ:GAUZ) and Preformed Line Products (NASDAQ:PLPC) Critical Review

Preformed Line Products (NASDAQ:PLPC) and Gauzy (NASDAQ:GAUZ) are both small-cap computer and technology companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, profitability, dividends, risk, valuation, earnings and institutional ownership.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

41.2% of Preformed Line Products shares are held by institutional investors. 35.1% of Preformed Line Products shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current recommendations and price targets for Preformed Line Products and Gauzy, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Preformed Line Products	0	0	1	1	3.50
Gauzy	1	0	2	0	2.33

Preformed Line Products presently has a consensus target price of $275.00, suggesting a potential downside of 9.17%. Gauzy has a consensus target price of $11.50, suggesting a potential upside of 1,407.41%. Given Gauzy’s higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Gauzy is more favorable than Preformed Line Products.

Profitability

This table compares Preformed Line Products and Gauzy’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Preformed Line Products	5.27%	9.36%	6.82%
Gauzy	N/A	N/A	N/A

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Preformed Line Products and Gauzy”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Preformed Line Products	$669.34 million	2.22	$35.28 million	$7.14	42.41
Gauzy	$103.53 million	0.14	-$53.18 million	($2.05)	-0.37

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

Risk and Volatility

Preformed Line Products has a beta of 0.75, meaning that its stock price is 25% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Gauzy has a beta of -1.38, meaning that its stock price is 238% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Preformed Line Products beats Gauzy on 13 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Preformed Line Products

Preformed Line Products Company, together with its subsidiaries, designs and manufactures products and systems that are used in the construction and maintenance of overhead, ground-mounted, and underground networks for the energy, telecommunication, cable, data communication, and other industries. The company offers optical ground wire products to support, protect, terminate, and splice transmission and distribution lines, as well as bolted, welded, and compressed connectors for substations; and string hardware products, polymer insulators, wildlife protection, substation fittings, and motion control devices. It also provides rugged outside plant closures to protect and support wireline and wireless networks, such as copper cable or fiber optic cable from moisture, environmental hazards, and other contaminants; and hardware assemblies, pole line hardware, plastic products, cable dynamics/vibration solutions, interior/exterior connectors, tools, and urethane solutions that are used by energy, renewable energy, communications, cable, and special industries for various applications. The company serves public and private energy utilities and communication companies, cable operators, governmental agencies, contractors and subcontractors, distributors, and value-added resellers in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific. It markets its products through a direct sales force, as well as through manufacturing representatives. Preformed Line Products Company was incorporated in 1947 and is headquartered in Mayfield Village, Ohio.

About Gauzy

Gauzy Ltd. is a fully-integrated light and vision control company which focused on the research, development, manufacturing and marketing of vision and light control technologies. It operates principally in Germany, France, the United States, Canada, China, Singapore and Dubai. Gauzy Ltd. is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel.