Contrasting Gilead Sciences (GILD) and Its Peers

Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ:GILD) is one of 844 publicly-traded companies in the “Biotechnology” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its competitors? We will compare Gilead Sciences to related businesses based on the strength of its institutional ownership, earnings, dividends, valuation, profitability, analyst recommendations and risk.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

83.7% of Gilead Sciences shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 47.9% of shares of all “Biotechnology” companies are held by institutional investors. 0.3% of Gilead Sciences shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 13.1% of shares of all “Biotechnology” companies are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Volatility and Risk

Gilead Sciences has a beta of 0.35, suggesting that its share price is 65% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Gilead Sciences’ competitors have a beta of 1.12, suggesting that their average share price is 12% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current recommendations and price targets for Gilead Sciences and its competitors, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Gilead Sciences	0	6	23	0	2.79
Gilead Sciences Competitors	9828	15119	45430	1586	2.54

Gilead Sciences currently has a consensus price target of $170.15, indicating a potential upside of 1.95%. As a group, “Biotechnology” companies have a potential upside of 103.66%. Given Gilead Sciences’ competitors higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Gilead Sciences has less favorable growth aspects than its competitors.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Gilead Sciences	-12.47%	-1.85%	-0.61%
Gilead Sciences Competitors	-9,046.59%	-199.78%	-30.61%

Dividends

Gilead Sciences pays an annual dividend of $3.28 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.0%. Gilead Sciences pays out -103.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, “Biotechnology” companies pay a dividend yield of 1.4% and pay out 39.9% of their earnings in the form of a dividend. Gilead Sciences has increased its dividend for 10 consecutive years. Gilead Sciences is clearly a better dividend stock than its competitors, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Valuation & Earnings

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

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Gilead Sciences	$29.44 billion	$8.51 billion	-52.81
Gilead Sciences Competitors	$691.14 million	$10.43 million	-15.00

Gilead Sciences has higher revenue and earnings than its competitors. Gilead Sciences is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its competitors, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Summary

Gilead Sciences beats its competitors on 10 of the 15 factors compared.

About Gilead Sciences

Gilead Sciences, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, discovers, develops, and commercializes medicines in the areas of unmet medical need in the United States, Europe, and internationally. The company provides Biktarvy, Genvoya, Descovy, Odefsey, Truvada, Complera/ Eviplera, Stribild, Sunlencs, and Atripla products for the treatment of HIV/AIDS; Veklury, an injection for intravenous use, for the treatment of COVID-19; and Epclusa, Harvoni, Vemlidy, and Viread for the treatment of viral hepatitis. It also offers Yescarta, Tecartus, and Trodelvy products for the treatment of oncology; Letairis, an oral formulation for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension; and AmBisome, a liposomal formulation for the treatment of serious invasive fungal infections. The company has collaboration agreements with Arcus Biosciences, Inc.; Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp.; Pionyr Immunotherapeutics Inc.; Tizona Therapeutics, Inc.; Galapagos NV; Janssen Sciences Ireland Unlimited Company; Japan Tobacco, Inc.; Dragonfly Therapeutics, Inc.; Arcellx, Inc.; Everest Medicines; Merck & Co, Inc.; Tentarix Biotherapeutics Inc.; and Assembly Biosciences, Inc. It also has research collaboration, option, and license agreement with Merus N.V. for the discovery of novel dual tumor-associated antigens (TAA) targeting trispecific antibodies. The company was incorporated in 1987 and is headquartered in Foster City, California.