Head to Head Comparison: IQVIA (NYSE:IQV) & Mettler-Toledo International (NYSE:MTD)

IQVIA (NYSE:IQV) and Mettler-Toledo International (NYSE:MTD) are both large-cap healthcare companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, dividends, institutional ownership, earnings, valuation, profitability and analyst recommendations.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

89.6% of IQVIA shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 95.1% of Mettler-Toledo International shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.7% of IQVIA shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.7% of Mettler-Toledo International shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for IQVIA and Mettler-Toledo International, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
IQVIA	0	3	12	2	2.94
Mettler-Toledo International	1	8	6	0	2.33

IQVIA currently has a consensus target price of $276.00, indicating a potential upside of 2.09%. Mettler-Toledo International has a consensus target price of $1,469.15, indicating a potential downside of 10.53%. Given IQVIA’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts clearly believe IQVIA is more favorable than Mettler-Toledo International.

Profitability

This table compares IQVIA and Mettler-Toledo International’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
IQVIA	8.10%	30.25%	6.54%
Mettler-Toledo International	21.91%	-1,212.14%	25.11%

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares IQVIA and Mettler-Toledo International”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
IQVIA	$16.98 billion	2.62	$1.36 billion	$8.06	33.54
Mettler-Toledo International	$4.03 billion	8.17	$869.19 million	$44.43	36.96

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

Volatility and Risk

IQVIA has a beta of 1.17, suggesting that its stock price is 17% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Mettler-Toledo International has a beta of 1.19, suggesting that its stock price is 19% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

IQVIA beats Mettler-Toledo International on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About IQVIA

IQVIA Holdings Inc. engages in the provision of advanced analytics, technology solutions, and clinical research services to the life sciences industry in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific. It operates through three segments: Technology & Analytics Solutions, Research & Development Solutions, and Contract Sales & Medical Solutions. The Technology & Analytics Solutions segment offers a range of cloud-based applications and related implementation services; real world solutions that enable life sciences and provider customers to generate and disseminate evidence, which informs health care decision making and improves patients’ outcomes; and strategic and implementation consulting services, such as advanced analytics and commercial processes outsourcing services. This segment also provides country level performance metrics related to sales of pharmaceutical products, prescribing trends, medical treatment, and promotional activity across various channels, including retail, hospital, and mail order; and measurement of sales or prescribing activity at the regional, zip code, and individual prescriber level. The Research & Development Solutions segment offers project management and clinical monitoring; clinical trial support; strategic planning and design services; and patient and site centric solutions, as well as central laboratory, genomic, bioanalytical, ADME, discovery, and vaccine and biomarker laboratory services. The Contract Sales & Medical Solutions segment provides health care provider and patient engagement services, and scientific strategy and medical affairs services. It serves pharmaceutical, biotechnology, device and diagnostic, and consumer health companies. The company has a collaboration with argenx SE. The company was formerly known as Quintiles IMS Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to IQVIA Holdings Inc. in November 2017. The company is headquartered in Durham, North Carolina.

About Mettler-Toledo International

Mettler-Toledo International Inc. manufactures and supplies precision instruments and services in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and internationally. It operates through five segments: U.S. Operations, Swiss Operations, Western European Operations, Chinese Operations, and Other. The company’s laboratory instruments include laboratory balances, liquid pipetting solutions, automated laboratory reactors, real-time analytics, titrators, pH meters, process analytics sensors and analyzer technologies, physical value analyzers, density and refractometry, thermal analysis systems, and other analytical instruments; and LabX, a laboratory software platform to manage and analyze data generated from its instruments. Its industrial instruments comprise industrial weighing instruments and related terminals, automatic dimensional measurement and data capture solutions, vehicle scale systems, industrial software, metal detection equipment, x-ray systems, check weighing equipment, camera-based imaging equipment, track-and-trace solutions, and product inspection systems. The company’s retail weighing solutions consist of weighing and software solutions, AI-driven image recognition solution, and automated packaging and labelling solutions for the meat backroom. It serves the life science industry, independent research organizations, and testing labs; food and beverage manufacturers; food retailers; chemical, specialty chemical, and cosmetics companies; food retailers; transportation and logistics, metals, and electronics industries; and the academic community through its direct sales force and indirect distribution channels. Mettler-Toledo International Inc. was incorporated in 1991 and is based in Columbus, Ohio.