Critical Survey: Becton, Dickinson and (NYSE:BDX) and Accuray (NASDAQ:ARAY)

Becton, Dickinson and (NYSE:BDX – Get Rating) and Accuray (NASDAQ:ARAY – Get Rating) are both medical companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, risk, analyst recommendations, earnings, dividends, institutional ownership and profitability.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

87.1% of Becton, Dickinson and shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 63.4% of Accuray shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.3% of Becton, Dickinson and shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 2.9% of Accuray shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings for Becton, Dickinson and and Accuray, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Becton, Dickinson and	0	1	7	0	2.88
Accuray	0	0	2	0	3.00

Becton, Dickinson and presently has a consensus target price of $276.60, indicating a potential upside of 14.41%. Accuray has a consensus target price of $7.25, indicating a potential upside of 102.51%. Given Accuray’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Accuray is more favorable than Becton, Dickinson and.

Volatility and Risk

Becton, Dickinson and has a beta of 0.54, meaning that its stock price is 46% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Accuray has a beta of 1.5, meaning that its stock price is 50% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Becton, Dickinson and and Accuray’s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Becton, Dickinson and	$18.87 billion	3.64	$1.78 billion	$5.33	45.36
Accuray	$429.91 million	0.80	-$5.35 million	($0.11)	-32.55

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

Profitability

This table compares Becton, Dickinson and and Accuray’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Becton, Dickinson and	8.59%	12.98%	6.19%
Accuray	-2.32%	-19.56%	-2.16%

Summary

Becton, Dickinson and beats Accuray on 10 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Becton, Dickinson and

(Get Rating)

Becton, Dickinson & Co. engages in the development, manufacture, and sale of medical supplies, devices, laboratory equipment, and diagnostic products. It operates through the following segments: BD Medical, BD Life Sciences, and BD Interventional. The BD Medical segment produces medical technologies and devices that are used to help improve healthcare delivery. The BD Life Sciences segment provides products for the safe collection and transport of diagnostics specimens, and instruments and reagent systems to detect infectious diseases, healthcare-associated infections, and cancers. The BD Interventional segment offers vascular, urology, oncology, and surgical specialty products to hospitals, individual healthcare professionals, extended care facilities, alternate site facilities, and patients via its Homecare business. The company was founded by Maxwell W. Becton and Fairleigh S. Dickinson in 1897 and is headquartered in Franklin Lakes, NJ.

About Accuray

(Get Rating)

Accuray, Inc. is a radiation oncology company. It engages in the development, manufacture and sale of treatment solutions that includes CyberKnife and Tomo Therapy systems, designed to deliver radiosurgery, stereotactic body radiation therapy, intensity modulated radiation therapy, image-guided radiation therapy, and adaptive radiation therapy. The company was founded by John R. Adler in 1990 and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA.