Iron Mountain (NYSE:IRM – Get Free Report) and Equinix (NASDAQ:EQIX – Get Free Report) are both large-cap real estate companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, dividends, analyst recommendations, profitability, valuation, risk and earnings.
Volatility & Risk
Iron Mountain has a beta of 1.18, meaning that its share price is 18% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Equinix has a beta of 0.99, meaning that its share price is 1% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Profitability
This table compares Iron Mountain and Equinix’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| Iron Mountain | 5.54% | -85.44% | 3.30% |
| Equinix | 15.64% | 10.76% | 3.83% |
Insider & Institutional Ownership
Earnings and Valuation
This table compares Iron Mountain and Equinix”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| Iron Mountain | $6.90 billion | 5.04 | $144.59 million | $1.40 | 83.44 |
| Equinix | $9.22 billion | 11.09 | $1.35 billion | $15.53 | 66.71 |
Equinix has higher revenue and earnings than Iron Mountain. Equinix is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Iron Mountain, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Dividends
Iron Mountain pays an annual dividend of $3.46 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.0%. Equinix pays an annual dividend of $20.64 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.0%. Iron Mountain pays out 247.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Equinix pays out 132.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Iron Mountain has raised its dividend for 3 consecutive years and Equinix has raised its dividend for 10 consecutive years.
Analyst Ratings
This is a breakdown of current ratings and target prices for Iron Mountain and Equinix, as reported by MarketBeat.com.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| Iron Mountain | 0 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 2.71 |
| Equinix | 0 | 4 | 21 | 2 | 2.93 |
Iron Mountain currently has a consensus target price of $137.67, suggesting a potential upside of 17.86%. Equinix has a consensus target price of $1,203.40, suggesting a potential upside of 16.16%. Given Iron Mountain’s higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Iron Mountain is more favorable than Equinix.
Summary
Equinix beats Iron Mountain on 13 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.
About Iron Mountain
Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE: IRM) is a global leader in information management services. Founded in 1951 and trusted by more than 240,000 customers worldwide, Iron Mountain serves to protect and elevate the power of our customers’ work. Through a range of offerings including digital transformation, data centers, secure records storage, information management, asset lifecycle management, secure destruction and art storage and logistics, Iron Mountain helps businesses bring light to their dark data, enabling customers to unlock value and intelligence from their stored digital and physical assets at speed and with security, while helping them meet their environmental goals.
About Equinix
Equinix (Nasdaq: EQIX) is the world's digital infrastructure company . Digital leaders harness Equinix's trusted platform to bring together and interconnect foundational infrastructure at software speed. Equinix enables organizations to access all the right places, partners and possibilities to scale with agility, speed the launch of digital services, deliver world-class experiences and multiply their value, while supporting their sustainability goals.
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