Critical Survey: National Vision (NASDAQ:EYE) & Clorox (NYSE:CLX)

National Vision (NASDAQ:EYE) and Clorox (NYSE:CLX) are both consumer staples companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, profitability, risk, analyst recommendations, valuation and dividends.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and price targets for National Vision and Clorox, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
National Vision	0	5	7	0	2.58
Clorox	5	11	1	0	1.76

National Vision currently has a consensus price target of $30.08, indicating a potential upside of 75.62%. Clorox has a consensus price target of $103.40, indicating a potential upside of 8.87%. Given National Vision’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe National Vision is more favorable than Clorox.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

78.5% of Clorox shares are held by institutional investors. 2.4% of National Vision shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.6% of Clorox shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Volatility and Risk

National Vision has a beta of 1.18, indicating that its stock price is 18% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Clorox has a beta of 0.59, indicating that its stock price is 41% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares National Vision and Clorox”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
National Vision	$1.99 billion	0.69	$29.60 million	$0.57	30.05
Clorox	$7.10 billion	1.62	$810.00 million	$6.16	15.42

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

Profitability

This table compares National Vision and Clorox’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
National Vision	2.31%	6.41%	2.81%
Clorox	11.18%	443.64%	14.32%

Summary

Clorox beats National Vision on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About National Vision

National Vision Holdings, Inc., through its subsidiaries, operates as an optical retailer in the United States. The company operates in two segments, Owned & Host and Legacy. It offers eyeglasses and contact lenses, and optical accessory products; provides eye exams through its America’s Best, Eyeglass World, Vista Optical, Fred Meyer, and Vista Optical military, as well as Vision Center branded stores; and offers health maintenance organization and optometric services. National Vision Holdings, Inc. was founded in 1990 and is headquartered in Duluth, Georgia.

About Clorox

The Clorox Company manufactures and markets consumer and professional products worldwide. It operates through four segments: Health and Wellness, Household, Lifestyle, and International. The Health and Wellness segment offers cleaning products, such as laundry additives and home care products primarily under the Clorox, Clorox2, Scentiva, Pine-Sol, Liquid-Plumr, Tilex, and Formula 409 brands; professional cleaning and disinfecting products under the CloroxPro and Clorox Healthcare brands; professional food service products under the Hidden Valley brand; and vitamins, minerals and supplement products under the RenewLife, Natural Vitality, NeoCell, and Rainbow Light brands in the United States. The Household segment provides cat litter products under the Fresh Step and Scoop Away brands; bags and wraps under the Glad brand; and grilling products under the Kingsford brand in the United States. The Lifestyle segment offers dressings, dips, seasonings, and sauces primarily under the Hidden Valley brand; natural personal care products under the Burt's Bees brand; and water-filtration products under the Brita brand in the United States. The International segment provides laundry additives; home care products; water-filtration systems; digestive health products; grilling products; cat litter products; food products; bags and wraps; natural personal care products; and professional cleaning and disinfecting products internationally primarily under the Clorox, Ayudin, Clorinda, Poett, Pine-Sol, Glad, Brita, RenewLife, Ever Clean and Burt's Bees brands. It sells its products primarily through mass retailers; grocery outlets; warehouse clubs; dollar stores; home hardware centers; drug, pet, and military stores; third-party and owned e-commerce channels; and distributors, as well as a direct sales force The Clorox Company was founded in 1913 and is headquartered in Oakland, California.