Reviewing Toro (NYSE:TTC) and Wabash National (NYSE:WNC)

Toro (NYSE:TTC) and Wabash National (NYSE:WNC) are both industrials companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, risk, dividends, earnings and profitability.

Earnings & Valuation

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

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Toro	$4.51 billion	2.26	$316.10 million	$3.74	28.73
Wabash National	$1.54 billion	0.31	$211.45 million	($3.41)	-3.40

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

Institutional & Insider Ownership

88.0% of Toro shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 97.0% of Wabash National shares are held by institutional investors. 1.9% of Toro shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 2.8% of Wabash National shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Toro and Wabash National’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Toro	7.64%	31.86%	12.35%
Wabash National	-9.13%	-42.42%	-10.90%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current recommendations and price targets for Toro and Wabash National, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Toro	0	3	3	0	2.50
Wabash National	1	1	2	1	2.60

Toro presently has a consensus target price of $111.67, indicating a potential upside of 3.92%. Wabash National has a consensus target price of $23.33, indicating a potential upside of 101.41%. Given Wabash National’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Wabash National is more favorable than Toro.

Dividends

Toro pays an annual dividend of $1.56 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.5%. Wabash National pays an annual dividend of $0.32 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.8%. Toro pays out 41.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Wabash National pays out -9.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Toro has raised its dividend for 21 consecutive years. Wabash National is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Risk & Volatility

Toro has a beta of 0.67, suggesting that its share price is 33% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Wabash National has a beta of 1.51, suggesting that its share price is 51% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Toro beats Wabash National on 9 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Toro

The Toro Company designs, manufactures, markets, and sells professional turf maintenance equipment and services. It operates through two segments: Professional and Residential. The Professional segment offers turf and landscape equipment products, including sports fields and grounds mowing and maintenance equipment, golf course mowing and maintenance equipment, landscape contractor mowing equipment, landscape creation and renovation equipment, and other maintenance equipment; rental, specialty, and underground construction equipment, such as horizontal directional drills, walk and ride trenchers, stand-on skid steers, vacuum excavators, stump grinders, turf renovation products, asset locators, pipe rehabilitation solutions, materials handling equipment, and other after-market tools; and snow and ice management equipment, such as snowplows, as well as stand-on snow and ice removal equipment, such as snowplow, snow brush, and snow thrower attachments, salt and sand spreaders, and related parts and accessories for light and medium duty trucks, utility task vehicles, skid steers, and front-end loaders. This segment also provides irrigation and lighting products that consist of sprinkler heads, electric and hydraulic valves, controllers, computer irrigation central control systems, coupling systems, and ag-irrigation drip tape and hose products, as well as professionally installed landscape lighting products offered through distributors and landscape contractors. The Residential segment provides walk power mowers, zero-turn riding mowers, snow throwers, replacement parts, and home solution products that include grass and hedge trimmers, leaf blowers, blower-vacuums, chainsaws, string trimmers, hoses, and hose-end retail irrigation products. It sells its products through a network of distributors, dealers, mass retailers, hardware retailers, equipment rental centers, home centers, and online. The company was founded in 1914 and is headquartered in Bloomington, Minnesota.

About Wabash National

Wabash National Corporation provides connected solutions for the transportation, logistics, and distribution industries primarily in the United States. The company operates through two segments, Transportation Solutions and Parts & Services. The Transportation Solutions segment designs and manufactures transportation-related equipment and products dry and refrigerated van trailers, platform trailers, tank trailers, and truck-mounted tanks; truck bodies for dry-freight transportation; cargo and cargo XL bodies for commercial applications; refrigerated truck bodies; platform truck bodies; and used trailers, as well as laminated hardwood oak flooring products. The Parts & Services segment provides aftermarket parts and services; steel flatbed bodies, truck body mounting, shelving for package delivery, partitions, roof racks, hitches, liftgates, thermal solutions, and others; truck body repair parts; and door repair and replacement, collision repair, and basic maintenance services. It also develops and scales a digital marketplace for the transportation and logistics distribution industry; operates a parts and services distribution platform; and stainless steel storage tanks and silos, mixers, and processors for the dairy, food and beverage, pharmaceutical, chemical, craft brewing, and biotech markets; trailers as a service; and composite products, including truck bodies, overhead doors, and other industrial application products, as well as used trailers. The company offers its products under the Wabash, DuraPlate, DuraPlateHD, DuraPlate AeroSkirt, and AeroSkirt CX brands, as well as EcoNex brand. It serves its products to truckload common carriers, leasing companies, private fleet carriers, less-than-truckload common carriers, and package carriers. Wabash National Corporation was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in Lafayette, Indiana.