LightPath Technologies (LPTH) and Its Competitors Financial Review

LightPath Technologies (NASDAQ:LPTH) is one of 377 publicly-traded companies in the “Electronic Equipment, Instruments & Components” industry, but how does it contrast to its peers? We will compare LightPath Technologies to similar businesses based on the strength of its dividends, institutional ownership, profitability, analyst recommendations, earnings, risk and valuation.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

56.3% of LightPath Technologies shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 43.2% of shares of all “Electronic Equipment, Instruments & Components” companies are held by institutional investors. 24.8% of LightPath Technologies shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 16.4% of shares of all “Electronic Equipment, Instruments & Components” companies 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.

Profitability

This table compares LightPath Technologies and its peers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
LightPath Technologies	-28.65%	-7.02%	-4.13%
LightPath Technologies Competitors	-158.14%	-25.87%	-6.85%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares LightPath Technologies and its peers gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
LightPath Technologies	$71.72 million	-$20.55 million	-17.65
LightPath Technologies Competitors	$4.00 billion	$172.92 million	4.90

LightPath Technologies’ peers have higher revenue and earnings than LightPath Technologies. LightPath Technologies is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and target prices for LightPath Technologies and its peers, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
LightPath Technologies	1	0	4	1	2.83
LightPath Technologies Competitors	2049	7612	10445	662	2.47

LightPath Technologies presently has a consensus target price of $13.70, suggesting a potential upside of 94.05%. As a group, “Electronic Equipment, Instruments & Components” companies have a potential upside of 41.19%. Given LightPath Technologies’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities analysts clearly believe LightPath Technologies is more favorable than its peers.

Risk & Volatility

LightPath Technologies has a beta of 1.53, indicating that its stock price is 53% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, LightPath Technologies’ peers have a beta of -0.29, indicating that their average stock price is 129% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

LightPath Technologies beats its peers on 10 of the 13 factors compared.

LightPath Technologies Company Profile

LightPath Technologies, Inc. designs, develops, manufactures, and distributes optical components and assemblies. The company offers precision molded glass aspheric optics, molded and diamond-turned infrared aspheric lenses, and other optical components used to produce products that manipulate light; and infrared products, including catalog and custom infrared optics. Its products are used in defense products, medical devices, laser aided industrial tools, automotive safety applications, barcode scanners, optical data storage, hybrid fiber coax datacom, telecommunications, machine vision and sensors, and other sectors. The company sells its products directly to customers in Europe and Asia. LightPath Technologies, Inc. was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in Orlando, Florida.