Financial Review: LightPath Technologies (NASDAQ:LPTH) & Yaskawa Electric (OTCMKTS:YASKY)

LightPath Technologies (NASDAQ:LPTH) and Yaskawa Electric (OTCMKTS:YASKY) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, dividends, earnings, profitability, valuation, institutional ownership and risk.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings for LightPath Technologies and Yaskawa Electric, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
LightPath Technologies	1	1	4	1	2.71
Yaskawa Electric	0	2	2	2	3.00

LightPath Technologies presently has a consensus target price of $12.10, suggesting a potential downside of 17.24%. Given LightPath Technologies’ higher possible upside, equities analysts plainly believe LightPath Technologies is more favorable than Yaskawa Electric.

Profitability

This table compares LightPath Technologies and Yaskawa Electric’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
LightPath Technologies	-43.41%	-32.64%	-10.70%
Yaskawa Electric	6.50%	7.51%	4.47%

Risk and Volatility

LightPath Technologies has a beta of 1.07, meaning that its share price is 7% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Yaskawa Electric has a beta of 1.12, meaning that its share price is 12% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares LightPath Technologies and Yaskawa Electric”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
LightPath Technologies	$37.20 million	22.68	-$14.87 million	($0.52)	-28.12
Yaskawa Electric	$3.62 billion	2.31	$235.26 million	$1.81	35.66

Yaskawa Electric has higher revenue and earnings than LightPath Technologies. LightPath Technologies is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Yaskawa Electric, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

56.3% of LightPath Technologies shares are owned by institutional investors. 24.8% of LightPath Technologies shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Yaskawa Electric beats LightPath Technologies on 10 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About LightPath Technologies

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.

About Yaskawa Electric

YASKAWA Electric Corporation engages in motion control, robotics, system engineering, and other businesses worldwide. It manufactures and sells various AC drives, including general purpose AC drives, specific purpose AC drives, AC Drive for systems, regenerative energy saving units, and PM motors for use in household appliances, such as air conditioners and refrigerators; social infrastructures comprising elevators, escalators, trains, cranes, fans, and pumps; and factories that manufacture printing machinery, textile machinery, rubber machinery, and other materials. The company also offers rotary servo motors, direct drive servo motors, linear motors/linear sliders, machine controllers, positioning sensor encoders, and servo amplifiers for use in industrial robots, semiconductor manufacturing apparatus, machine tools, flat panel display manufacturing equipment, and metal working machines; and arc and spot welding, handling/assembling, collaborative, biomedical, palletizing, press handling, sealing/cutting/laser machining, deburring, painting, glass substrates transfer, and semiconductor wafer transfer robots for use in semiconductor wafer conveyance, arc welding, spot welding, handling, assembly, and palletizing applications. In addition, it provides industrial system electrical products, such as medium-voltage AC drives, system use AC drives, and system controllers for use in iron and steel systems, water and wastewater treatment, crane, and paper-making/film/port cargo handling/fiber/printing applications. Further, the company offers equipment for energy saving and creation comprising PV inverters, systems for large wind turbines, control equipment for small-scale power generation, and motor drive systems for use in photovoltaic power generation, large-scale wind power generation, small-scale power generation, and electric vehicles. The company was founded in 1915 and is headquartered in Kitakyushu, Japan.