Comparing Aqua Metals (NASDAQ:AQMS) & Pentair (NYSE:PNR)

Aqua Metals (NASDAQ:AQMS) and Pentair (NYSE:PNR) are both business services companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, dividends, valuation, risk, profitability, institutional ownership and earnings.

Volatility and Risk

Aqua Metals has a beta of 0.25, meaning that its share price is 75% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Pentair has a beta of 1.05, meaning that its share price is 5% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Aqua Metals	N/A	-185.00%	-129.28%
Pentair	15.98%	21.92%	12.21%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

22.0% of Aqua Metals shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 92.4% of Pentair shares are owned by institutional investors. 8.3% of Aqua Metals shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.3% of Pentair shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings for Aqua Metals and Pentair, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Aqua Metals	1	0	1	0	2.00
Pentair	3	2	10	0	2.47

Pentair has a consensus price target of $107.86, suggesting a potential upside of 44.83%. Given Pentair’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Pentair is more favorable than Aqua Metals.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Aqua Metals and Pentair”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Aqua Metals	N/A	N/A	-$22.65 million	($10.85)	-0.30
Pentair	$4.18 billion	2.88	$653.80 million	$4.08	18.25

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

Summary

Pentair beats Aqua Metals on 12 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Aqua Metals

Aqua Metals, Inc. engages in reinventing metals recycling activities with its patented AquaRefining technology. The company's technology produces metals and alloys that can be returned into the battery manufacturing supply chain markets, as well as sells metals for use in various advanced manufacturing industries. Its AquaRefining, a low-emissions and recycling technology that replaces polluting furnaces and hazardous chemicals with electricity-powered electroplating to recover valuable metals and materials from spent batteries. Aqua Metals, Inc. was incorporated in 2014 and is headquartered in Reno, Nevada.

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.