Medtronic (NYSE:MDT) and Senestech (NASDAQ:SNES) Critical Comparison

Medtronic (NYSE:MDT) and Senestech (NASDAQ:SNES) are both medical companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, dividends, earnings, analyst recommendations, valuation and risk.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations for Medtronic and Senestech, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Medtronic	0	11	17	0	2.61
Senestech	1	1	0	1	2.33

Medtronic presently has a consensus target price of $99.00, indicating a potential upside of 24.74%. Given Medtronic’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe Medtronic is more favorable than Senestech.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

82.1% of Medtronic shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 5.2% of Senestech shares are held by institutional investors. 0.3% of Medtronic shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 2.2% of Senestech shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Risk and Volatility

Medtronic has a beta of 0.58, indicating that its stock price is 42% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Senestech has a beta of 0.28, indicating that its stock price is 72% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Medtronic and Senestech’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Medtronic	13.20%	14.61%	7.80%
Senestech	-304.22%	-67.60%	-49.21%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Medtronic and Senestech”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Medtronic	$36.36 billion	2.80	$4.80 billion	$3.73	21.28
Senestech	$2.22 million	3.94	-$6.38 million	($1.89)	-0.87

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

Summary

Medtronic beats Senestech on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Medtronic

Medtronic plc develops, manufactures, and sells device-based medical therapies to healthcare systems, physicians, clinicians, and patients worldwide. Its Cardiovascular Portfolio segment offers implantable cardiac pacemakers, cardioverter defibrillators, and cardiac resynchronization therapy devices; cardiac ablation products; insertable cardiac monitor systems; TYRX products; and remote monitoring and patient-centered software. It also provides aortic valves, surgical valve replacement and repair products, endovascular stent grafts and accessories, and transcatheter pulmonary valves; and percutaneous coronary intervention products, percutaneous angioplasty balloons, and products. The company's Medical Surgical Portfolio segment offers surgical stapling devices, vessel sealing instruments, wound closure, electrosurgery products, surgical artificial intelligence and robotic-assisted surgery products, hernia mechanical devices, mesh implants, gynecology and lung products, and various therapies to treat diseases, as well as products in the fields of minimally invasive gastrointestinal and hepatologic diagnostics and therapies, patient monitoring, airway management and ventilation therapies, and renal disease. Its Neuroscience Portfolio segment offers products for spinal surgeons; neurosurgeons; neurologists; pain management specialists; anesthesiologists; orthopedic surgeons; urologists; urogynecologists; interventional radiologists; ear, nose, and throat specialists; and systems that incorporate energy surgical instruments. It also provides image-guided surgery and intra-operative imaging systems and robotic guidance systems used in robot assisted spine procedures; and therapies for vasculature in and around the brain. The company's Diabetes Operating Unit segment offers insulin pumps and consumables, continuous glucose monitoring systems, smart insulin pen systems, and consumables and supplies. The company was founded in 1949 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland.

About Senestech

SenesTech, Inc. develops a technology for managing animal pest populations through fertility control. It offers ContraPest, a liquid bait that limits reproduction of male and female rats. The company was incorporated in 2004 and is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona.