Electro-Sensors (NASDAQ:ELSE) & Hoya (OTCMKTS:HOCPY) Head-To-Head Contrast

Hoya (OTCMKTS:HOCPY) and Electro-Sensors (NASDAQ:ELSE) are both technology companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, risk, dividends, profitability, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership and valuation.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Hoya and Electro-Sensors”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Hoya	$5.88 billion	9.41	$1.58 billion	$5.04	32.80
Electro-Sensors	$10.48 million	2.61	$310,000.00	$0.08	96.75

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

Volatility & Risk

Hoya has a beta of 0.97, meaning that its share price is 3% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Electro-Sensors has a beta of 0.63, meaning that its share price is 37% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

0.1% of Hoya shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 11.7% of Electro-Sensors shares are held by institutional investors. 13.3% of Electro-Sensors shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Hoya and Electro-Sensors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Hoya	27.58%	25.78%	20.41%
Electro-Sensors	2.42%	1.73%	1.62%

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current recommendations and price targets for Hoya and Electro-Sensors, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Hoya	0	0	0	1	4.00
Electro-Sensors	0	1	0	0	2.00

Dividends

Hoya pays an annual dividend of $1.65 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.0%. Electro-Sensors pays an annual dividend of $0.16 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.1%. Hoya pays out 32.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Electro-Sensors pays out 200.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future.

Summary

Hoya beats Electro-Sensors on 11 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Hoya

HOYA Corporation, a med-tech company, provides high-tech and medical products worldwide. It operates through three segments: Life Care, Telecommunication, and Other. The company offers life care products, including eyeglass and contact lenses; medical endoscopes; intraocular lenses; laparoscopic surgical instruments; automatic endoscope cleaning equipment; and other medical related products, such as prosthetic ceramic fillers and metallic implants for orthopedics. It also operates Eyecity, a specialty retailer of contact lenses. In addition, the company provides information technology products, such as mask blanks and photomasks for manufacturing semiconductor chips; glass disks for hard disk drives; and imaging products that include optical glasses/optical lenses, colored glass filters, and laser equipment/UV light resources. Further, it engages in the research, development, manufacture, and sale of photomasks for manufacturing flat panel displays. Additionally, the company offers ReadSpeaker, a speech synthesis software; and cloud services comprising Kinnosuke, a time and attendance management service, as well as Yonosuke, an electronic payslip service. HOYA Corporation was founded in 1941 and is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.

About Electro-Sensors

Electro-Sensors, Inc. engages in the manufacture and selling of industrial production monitoring and process control systems. Its products include shaft speed witches; wireless hazard monitoring; temperature sensor; slide gate and angle position; bearing sensors and belt alignment; and motor drive control. The company was founded by James P. Slattery in 1965 and is headquartered in Minnetonka, MN.