Photronics (NASDAQ:PLAB) versus Marvell Technology (NASDAQ:MRVL) Critical Review

Photronics (NASDAQ:PLAB) and Marvell Technology (NASDAQ:MRVL) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, analyst recommendations, profitability, institutional ownership, valuation, risk and dividends.

Profitability

This table compares Photronics and Marvell Technology’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Photronics	15.14%	9.73%	8.21%
Marvell Technology	-18.33%	4.51%	3.17%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Photronics and Marvell Technology’s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Photronics	$892.08 million	1.69	$125.49 million	$2.16	11.02
Marvell Technology	$5.35 billion	11.22	-$933.40 million	($1.13)	-61.35

Photronics has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Marvell Technology. Marvell Technology is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Photronics, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility and Risk

Photronics has a beta of 1.38, suggesting that its stock price is 38% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Marvell Technology has a beta of 1.47, suggesting that its stock price is 47% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

88.4% of Photronics shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 83.5% of Marvell Technology shares are held by institutional investors. 3.9% of Photronics shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.3% of Marvell Technology shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for Photronics and Marvell Technology, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Photronics	0	0	0	0	N/A
Marvell Technology	0	1	20	0	2.95

Marvell Technology has a consensus price target of $85.50, suggesting a potential upside of 23.34%. Given Marvell Technology’s higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Marvell Technology is more favorable than Photronics.

Summary

Photronics beats Marvell Technology on 8 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Photronics

Photronics, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the manufacture and sale of photomask products and services in the United States, Taiwan, China, Korea, Europe, and internationally. It offers photomasks that are used in the manufacture of integrated circuits and flat panel displays (FPDs); and to transfer circuit patterns onto semiconductor wafers, and FDP substrates. The company offers electrical and optical components. It sells its products to semiconductor and FPD manufacturers, designers, and foundries, as well as to other high-performance electronics manufacturers through its sales personnel and customer service representatives. The company was formerly known as Photronic Labs, Inc. and changed its name to Photronics, Inc. in 1990. Photronics, Inc. was incorporated in 1969 and is based in Brookfield, Connecticut.

About Marvell Technology

Marvell Technology, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides data infrastructure semiconductor solutions, spanning the data center core to network edge. The company develops and scales complex System-on-a-Chip architectures, integrating analog, mixed-signal, and digital signal processing functionality. It offers a portfolio of Ethernet solutions, including controllers, network adapters, physical transceivers, and switches; single or multiple core processors; and custom application specific integrated circuits. The company also provides electro-optical products, including pulse amplitude modulations, coherent digital signal processors, laser drivers, trans-impedance amplifiers, silicon photonics, and data center interconnect solutions; fibre channel products comprising host bus adapters and controllers; storage controllers for hard disk drives and solid-state-drives; and host system interfaces, including serial attached SCSI, serial advanced technology attachment, peripheral component interconnect express, non-volatile memory express (NVMe), and NVMe over fabrics. It has operations in the United States, Argentina, China, India, Israel, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Marvell Technology, Inc. was incorporated in 1995 and is headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware.