Analyzing ARQ (NASDAQ:ARQ) & Pentair (NYSE:PNR)

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

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Pentair and ARQ”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Pentair	$4.18 billion	3.91	$653.80 million	$3.96	25.17
ARQ	$108.96 million	1.34	-$5.11 million	($0.10)	-34.10

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

Profitability

This table compares Pentair and ARQ’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Pentair	15.66%	21.79%	12.14%
ARQ	-3.33%	-1.11%	-0.86%

Risk & Volatility

Pentair has a beta of 1.22, suggesting that its share price is 22% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, ARQ has a beta of 1.97, suggesting that its share price is 97% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

92.4% of Pentair shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 18.5% of ARQ shares are held by institutional investors. 1.5% of Pentair shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 23.9% of ARQ shares are held by 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 summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Pentair and ARQ, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Pentair	3	3	10	0	2.44
ARQ	1	1	2	1	2.60

Pentair presently has a consensus target price of $114.47, suggesting a potential upside of 14.83%. ARQ has a consensus target price of $8.75, suggesting a potential upside of 156.60%. Given ARQ’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe ARQ is more favorable than Pentair.

Summary

Pentair beats ARQ on 10 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

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.

About ARQ

Arq, Inc. is a holding company. It engages in the provision of environmental and emission control equipment to the power generation industry. The company operates through the following Segments: Refined Coal and Advanced Purification Technologies. The Refined Coal segment includes the Tinuum Group, Tinuum Services, and GWN Manager. The Advanced Purification Technologies segment refers to the sale of Activated Carbon Injection and Dry Sorbent Injection equipment systems, chemical sales, consulting services, and other sales related to the reduction of emissions in the coal-fired electric generation process and the electric utility industry. The company was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Greenwood Village, CO.