Which Is a Better Investment, Arcosa Inc or Stantec Inc. (USA) Stock?

By Jenna Brashear
September 02, 2026
Large versus logo comparing two stocks in the same industry
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Sifting through countless of stocks in the Construction & Engineering industry can be tedious, and sometimes two stocks are just too similar to judge which is the better investment. If you’re on the fence about investing in Arcosa, Inc. or Stantec Inc. because you’re not sure how they measure up, it’s important to compare them on a few factors before making your decision.

Read on to learn how Arcosa, Inc. and Stantec Inc. compare based on key financial metrics to determine which better meets your investment needs.

About Arcosa, Inc. and Stantec Inc.

Arcosa, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides infrastructure-related products and solutions for the construction, engineered structures, and transportation markets in the United States. The company operates through three segments: Construction Products, Engineered Structures, and Transportation Products. The Construction Products segment offers natural and recycled aggregates; specialty materials; and construction site support equipment, including trench shields and shoring products for residential and non-residential construction, and specialty and other products, as well as for infrastructure construction. The Engineered Structures segment offers utility structures, wind towers, traffic and lighting structures, and telecommunication structures for electricity transmission and distribution, wind power generation, highway road construction, and wireless communication markets. This segment also sells its products to contractors and distributors serving state Departments of Transportation and state and municipality agencies. The Transportation Products segment offers inland barges, fiberglass barge covers, winches, marine hardware, and other transportation and industrial equipment to the commercial marine transportation companies, lessors, and industrial shippers. Arcosa, Inc. was incorporated in 2018 and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas.

Stantec Inc. provides professional services in the areas of infrastructure and facilities to private and public sectors in Canada, the United States, and internationally. The company offers evaluation, planning, and designing infrastructure solutions; various permitting, conservation, ecosystem restoration, health sciences, and environmental, social, and governance strategy services; solutions for sustainable water resources, planning, management, and infrastructure; integrated architecture, engineering, interior design, and planning solutions for buildings; and energy and resources solutions. It also provides consulting services in engineering, architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, surveying, environmental sciences, project management, and project economics. In addition, the company provides fire engineering, electrical, mechanical, hydraulics, buildings sustainability, and civil expertise services; services in mission critical, academic, civic, cultural, aviation, science and technology, commercial, industrial, and workplace; and delivers services to local authorities, government departments, private clients, and utility companies. Further, the company is involved in the planning, design, construction administration, commissioning, maintenance, decommissioning, and remediation services. Additionally, it offers infrastructure planning, inspection, project management, and construction management services; transportation, buildings, and environmental services; and energy and sustainability, fire safety, civil and structural, and mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) engineering, transport, environmental, and geotechnical services. The company was formerly known as Stanley Technology Group Inc. and changed its name to Stantec Inc. in October 1998. Stantec Inc. was founded in 1954 and is headquartered in Edmonton, Canada.

Latest Construction & Engineering and Arcosa, Inc., Stantec Inc. Stock News

As of September 1, 2026, Arcosa, Inc. had a $7.1 billion market capitalization, compared to the Construction & Engineering median of $2.8 million. Arcosa, Inc.’s stock is NA in 2026, NA in the previous five trading days and up 47.02% in the past year.

Currently, Arcosa, Inc.’s price-earnings ratio is 32.6. Arcosa, Inc.’s trailing 12-month revenue is $2.9 billion with a 16.8% net profit margin. Year-over-year quarterly sales growth most recently was 1.7%. Analysts expect adjusted earnings to reach $4.292 per share for the current fiscal year. Arcosa, Inc. currently has a 0.1% dividend yield.

Currently, Stantec Inc.’s price-earnings ratio is 23.0. Stantec Inc.’s trailing 12-month revenue is $4.8 billion with a 7.4% net profit margin. Year-over-year quarterly sales growth most recently was 7.1%. Analysts expect adjusted earnings to reach $4.463 per share for the current fiscal year. Stantec Inc. currently has a 1.4% dividend yield.

How We Compare Arcosa, Inc. and Stantec Inc. Stock Grades

Stock evaluation requires access to huge amounts of data and the knowledge and time to sift through it all, make sense of financial ratios, read income statements and analyze recent stock movements. AAII created A+ Investor, a robust data suite that condenses data research in an actionable and customizable way suitable for investors of all knowledge levels, to help investors streamline and work through such data.

AAII’s proprietary stock grades come with A+ Investor. These offer intuitive A‐F grades for each of five key investing factors: value, growth, momentum, earnings estimate revisions and quality. Here, we’ll take a closer look at Arcosa, Inc. and Stantec Inc.’s stock grades to see how they measure up against one another.

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Arcosa, Inc. and Stantec Inc. Stock Value Grades

Company Ticker Value
Arcosa, Inc. ACA D
Stantec Inc. STN C

Successful stock investing involves buying low and selling high, so stock valuation is an important consideration for stock selection.

Buying stocks that are going to go up typically means buying stocks that are undervalued in the first place, although momentum investors may argue that point.

AAII’s A+ Investor Value Grade derives from a stock’s value score. The Value Score is the percentile rank of the average of the percentile ranks of the price-to-sales ratio, price-earnings ratio, enterprise-value-to-EBITDA (EV/EBITDA) ratio, shareholder yield, price-to-book-value ratio and price-to-free-cash-flow ratio. The score is variable, meaning it can consider all six ratios or, should any of the six ratios not be valid, the remaining ratios that are valid. To be assigned a Value Score, stocks must have a valid (non-null) ratio and corresponding ranking for at least two of the six valuation ratios.

Stocks with a Value Score from 81 to 100 are considered deep value, those with a score between 61 and 80 are a good value and so on.

Arcosa, Inc. has a Value Score of 27, which is Expensive. Stantec Inc. has a Value Score of 54, which is Average.

The Value Stock Winner: No Clear Winner

Neither Arcosa, Inc. or Stantec Inc. has a high enough value grade to be considered a “winner.” Investors who are considering these companies should do additional due diligence and research to see if either could be a good addition to their portfolio. It’s important to look at a wide range of financial metrics in order to determine if Arcosa, Inc. or Stantec Inc. is the better investment when it comes to value.

Arcosa, Inc. and Stantec Inc. Growth Grades

Company Ticker Growth
Arcosa, Inc. ACA A
Stantec Inc. STN A

The foundation of growth investing is seeking out stocks of companies exhibiting strong, consistent and prolonged growth that is expected to continue into the future.

In order to compute the growth score and assign it a letter grade, the percentile ranks for each of three components‐consistency of annual sales growth, five-year sales growth rankings adjusted for extreme levels, and consistency of positive annual cash from operations‐must be determined. These three rank figures are added together, and the sum is ranked against the entire stock universe to arrive at a company’s Growth Score to create an equal distribution of grades.

The companies in the bottom 20% of the stock universe receive Growth Grades of F, considered to be very weak, while those in the top 20% receive A grades, which are considered very strong.

Arcosa, Inc. has a Growth Score of 100, which is Very Strong. Stantec Inc. has a Growth Score of 95, which is Very Strong.

The Growth Grade Winner: It’s a Tie!

Looking at the Growth Grade breakdown above, both Arcosa, Inc. and Stantec Inc. have a grade of A. For investors who focus solely on a company’s upward growth, further research should be conducted into both companies’ other financial metrics before deciding whether to invest.

Arcosa, Inc. and Stantec Inc.’s Quality Grades

Company Ticker Quality
Arcosa, Inc. ACA B
Stantec Inc. STN A

Like the Value Grade, AAII’s A+ Investor Quality Grade comes from the percentile rank of key metrics. Specifically, the Quality Score is the percentile rank of the average of the percentile ranks of return on assets (ROA), return on invested capital (ROIC), gross profit relative to assets, buyback yield, change in total liabilities to assets, accruals, Z double prime bankruptcy risk (Z) score and the F-Score.

The score is variable, meaning it can consider all eight measures or, should any of the eight measures not be valid, the remaining measures that are valid. To be assigned a Quality Score, stocks must have a valid (non-null) measure and corresponding ranking for at least four of the eight quality measures.

The Quality Score is used to assess the underlying “quality” of a particular stock. A higher-quality stock possesses traits associated with upside potential and reduced downside risk. Backtesting of the Quality Grade shows that stocks with higher grades, on average, outperformed stocks with lower grades over the period of 1998 through 2019.

Stocks receive better grades (higher scores) for having higher scores for the quality subcomponents and worse grades (lower scores) for lower scores for the subcomponents.

Arcosa, Inc. has a Quality Score of 69, which is Strong. Stantec Inc. has a Quality Score of 88, which is Very Strong.

The Quality Grade Winner: Stantec Inc.

As you can clearly see from the Quality Grade breakdown above, Stantec Inc. has a better overall quality grade than Arcosa, Inc.. For investors who are looking for companies with higher quality than others in the same industry, Stantec Inc. could be a good stock to add to their portfolios. However, it’s important for investors to analyze multiple factors based on a wide range of metrics before deciding whether to buy.

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Other Arcosa, Inc. and Stantec Inc. Grades

In addition to Growth, Value and Quality, A+ Investor also provides grades for Momentum and Estimate Revisions.

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Momentum grades help uncover stocks experiencing anomalously high rates of return; research finds that stocks with high relative levels of momentum tend to outperform, whereas those with low levels of momentum tend to continue underperforming.

Earnings estimate revisions scores take into account the magnitude of a company’s earnings surprise in its last two reported fiscal quarters. Often, surprises beget further surprises‐or at least continued sales growth (the exact opposite is generally true, too).

These 2 key factors, when combined with the above, provide a holistic view into a particular stock. Further, by joining A+ Investor you can see whether Arcosa, Inc. and Stantec Inc. pass any of our 60+ stock screens that have outperformed the market since their creation.

So, Which Is the Better Investment, Arcosa, Inc. or Stantec Inc. Stock?

Overall, Arcosa, Inc. stock has a Value Score of 27, Growth Score of 100 and Quality Score of 69.

Stantec Inc. stock has a Value Score of 54, Growth Score of 95 and Quality Score of 88.

Comparing Arcosa, Inc. and Stantec Inc.’s grades, scores and metrics can act as a solid basis to determine whether they may be a good investment or not. You’ll also want to look at your portfolio’s asset allocation as well as your risk tolerance and financial goals to see if either of these stocks would make a good fit for you. AAII can help you figure out which investments align with your individual needs and preferences.

Investors are encouraged to do their own due diligence and research. In this way, individuals can effectively become managers of their own assets‐without having to rely on others for financial independence. You can count on AAII for timeless articles on financial planning and stock-picking, unbiased research and actionable analysis.

A+ Investor adds to our qualitative teaching with a powerful data suite to help you whittle down investment choices to find stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) or mutual funds that meet your needs.

Learn More About A+ Investor

AAII Disclaimer

We make no representations or warranties that any investor will, or is likely to, achieve profits similar to those shown, because past, hypothetical or simulated performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. Before making an investment decision, you should consider your circumstances and whether the information on our content is applicable to your situation. This information was prepared in good faith, and we accept no liability for any errors or omissions. The full disclaimer can be read here.



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