Contrasting Bath & Body Works (NYSE:BBWI) and Titan Machinery (NASDAQ:TITN)

Titan Machinery (NASDAQ:TITN) and Bath & Body Works (NYSE:BBWI) are both retail/wholesale companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, valuation, analyst recommendations, dividends, profitability and risk.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for Titan Machinery and Bath & Body Works, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Titan Machinery	0	4	2	1	2.57
Bath & Body Works	1	5	11	0	2.59

Titan Machinery presently has a consensus price target of $19.20, indicating a potential upside of 0.16%. Bath & Body Works has a consensus price target of $43.56, indicating a potential upside of 8.51%. Given Bath & Body Works’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Bath & Body Works is more favorable than Titan Machinery.

Risk & Volatility

Titan Machinery has a beta of 1.31, suggesting that its stock price is 31% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Bath & Body Works has a beta of 1.83, suggesting that its stock price is 83% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Titan Machinery and Bath & Body Works”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Titan Machinery	$2.76 billion	0.16	$112.44 million	$1.34	14.31
Bath & Body Works	$7.43 billion	1.17	$878.00 million	$4.10	9.79

Bath & Body Works has higher revenue and earnings than Titan Machinery. Bath & Body Works is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Titan Machinery, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Titan Machinery and Bath & Body Works’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Titan Machinery	1.10%	5.91%	1.86%
Bath & Body Works	12.43%	-44.03%	14.45%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

78.4% of Titan Machinery shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 95.1% of Bath & Body Works shares are held by institutional investors. 10.3% of Titan Machinery shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.3% of Bath & Body Works shares are held 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.

Summary

Bath & Body Works beats Titan Machinery on 11 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Titan Machinery

Titan Machinery Inc. owns and operates a network of full service agricultural and construction equipment stores in the United States, Europe, and Australia. It operates through four segments: Agriculture, Construction, Europe, and Australia. The company sells new and used equipment, including agricultural and construction equipment manufactured under the CNH Industrial family of brands, as well as equipment from various other manufacturers. Its agricultural equipment includes machinery and attachments for use in the production of food, fiber, feed grain, feed stock, and renewable energy; and home and garden applications, as well as maintenance of commercial, residential, and government properties. The company’s construction equipment comprises heavy construction machinery, light industrial machinery for commercial and residential construction, and road and highway construction machinery. It also sells maintenance and replacement parts. In addition, the company offers repair and maintenance services that include warranty repairs, off-site and on-site repair services, scheduling off-season maintenance services, and notifying customers of periodic service requirements; and training programs to customers. Further, it rents equipment; and provides ancillary equipment support services, such as equipment transportation, global positioning system signal subscriptions and other precision farming products, farm data management products, and CNH Industrial finance and insurance products. The company operates in Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Missouri, Washington, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, the United States; Bulgaria, Germany, Romania, and Ukraine, Europe; and New South Wales, South Australia, and Victoria, Australia. Titan Machinery Inc. was founded in 1980 and is headquartered in West Fargo, North Dakota.

About Bath & Body Works

Bath & Body Works, Inc. is a specialty retailers and home to America’s Favorite Fragrances, offering a breadth of exclusive fragrances for the body and home, including the selling collections for fine fragrance mist, body lotion and body cream, 3-wick candles, home fragrance diffusers and liquid hand soap. The company was founded by Leslie Herbert Wexner in 1963 and is headquartered in Columbus, OH.