Reviewing Wingstop (WING) and The Competition

Wingstop (NASDAQ:WING) is one of 382 publicly-traded companies in the “Hotels, Restaurants & Leisure” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its competitors? We will compare Wingstop to related companies based on the strength of its analyst recommendations, valuation, institutional ownership, dividends, profitability, earnings and risk.

Profitability

This table compares Wingstop and its competitors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Wingstop	16.15%	-16.31%	18.05%
Wingstop Competitors	2.25%	-42.24%	2.07%

Risk & Volatility

Wingstop has a beta of 1.81, indicating that its stock price is 81% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Wingstop’s competitors have a beta of 1.62, indicating that their average stock price is 62% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Wingstop and its competitors revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Wingstop	$696.85 million	$174.27 million	33.46
Wingstop Competitors	$3.53 billion	$247.14 million	-160.66

Wingstop’s competitors have higher revenue and earnings than Wingstop. Wingstop is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its competitors, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

48.6% of shares of all “Hotels, Restaurants & Leisure” companies are owned by institutional investors. 0.5% of Wingstop shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 22.2% of shares of all “Hotels, Restaurants & Leisure” companies are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Dividends

Wingstop pays an annual dividend of $1.32 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.9%. Wingstop pays out 31.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, “Hotels, Restaurants & Leisure” companies pay a dividend yield of 3.3% and pay out 37.8% of their earnings in the form of a dividend. Wingstop has increased its dividend for 7 consecutive years.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings for Wingstop and its competitors, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Wingstop	1	5	22	1	2.79
Wingstop Competitors	3781	17155	25402	900	2.50

Wingstop presently has a consensus target price of $225.07, suggesting a potential upside of 59.78%. As a group, “Hotels, Restaurants & Leisure” companies have a potential upside of 60.92%. Given Wingstop’s competitors higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Wingstop has less favorable growth aspects than its competitors.

Summary

Wingstop beats its competitors on 9 of the 15 factors compared.

Wingstop Company Profile

Wingstop Inc., together with its subsidiaries, franchises and operates restaurants under the Wingstop brand. Its restaurants offer classic wings, boneless wings, tenders, and hand-sauced-and-tossed in various flavors, as well as chicken sandwiches with fries and hand-cut carrots and celery that are cooked-to-order. The company was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Addison, Texas.