Sifting through countless of stocks in the Machinery 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 Franklin Electric Co., Inc. or Pentair plc 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 Franklin Electric Co., Inc. and Pentair plc compare based on key financial metrics to determine which better meets your investment needs.

About Franklin Electric Co., Inc. and Pentair plc

Franklin Electric Co., Inc., together with its subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, and distributes water and fuel pumping systems in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. It operates through Water Systems, Energy Systems, and Distribution segments. The Water Systems segment offers motors, pumps, water treatment systems, monitoring devices, and related parts and equipment for use in groundwater, water transfer, and wastewater in a range of residential, agricultural, municipal, and industrial applications; and electronic drives and controls for the motors, which control functionality and provide protection from various hazards, such as electrical surges, over-heating, and dry wells or dry tanks. Its Energy Systems segment produces and markets pumps, motors, pipes, sumps, fittings, vapor recovery components, electronic controls, monitoring devices, and related parts and equipment for use in energy system applications; and components between the tanks and the dispensers, including submersible pumps, station hardware, piping, and corrosion control systems. This segment serves other energy markets, such as power reliability systems, including intelligent electronic devices that are designed for online monitoring for the power utility, hydroelectric, rail, and telecommunication and data center infrastructure. The Distribution segment sells to and provides presale support and specifications to the installing contractors. It sells its products to wholesale and retail distributors, specialty distributors, and industrial and petroleum equipment distributors, as well as to oil and utility companies, and original equipment manufacturers. The company was founded in 1944 and is headquartered in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Pentair plc provides various water solutions in the United States, Western Europe, China, Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Australia, and Canada. It operates through three segments: Flow, Water Solutions, and Pool. The Flow segment designs, manufactures, and sells fluid treatment and pump products and systems, including pressure vessels, gas recovery solutions, membrane bioreactors, wastewater reuse systems and advanced membrane filtration, separation systems, specialty insertion valves, water disposal pumps, water supply pumps, fluid transfer pumps, turbine pumps, solid handling pumps, and agricultural spray nozzles. This segment provides products under Pentair Flow, Aurora, Berkeley, Codeline, Fairbanks-Nijhuis, Haffmans, Hydromatic, Hypro, Jung Pumpen, Myers, Sta-Rite, Shurflo, Südmo, and X-Flow brand names. The Water Solutions segment offers commercial and residential water treatment products and systems, such as pressure tanks, control valves, activated carbon products, commercial ice machines, conventional filtration products, and point-of-entry and point-of-use water treatment systems for use in water filtration and water softening solutions, as well as commercial water management and filtration solutions in foodservice operations; and installation and preventative services for water management solutions for commercial operators under the Pentair Water Solutions, Everpure, Fleck, Manitowoc Ice, Pentek, and RainSoft brands. The Pool segment provides residential and commercial pool equipment and accessories, including pumps, filters, heaters, lights, automatic controls and cleaners, chlorinators, maintenance equipment, and pool accessories for residential and commercial pool maintenance, pool repair, renovation, service, construction, and aquaculture solutions. This segment offers products under the Pentair Pool, Kreepy Krauly, Pleatco, and Sta-Rite brands. Pentair plc was founded in 1966 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.

Latest Machinery and Franklin Electric Co., Inc., Pentair plc Stock News

As of July 31, 2026, Franklin Electric Co., Inc. had a $4.6 billion market capitalization, compared to the Machinery median of $3.9 million. Franklin Electric Co., Inc.’s stock is up 9.6% in 2026, down 0.8% in the previous five trading days and up 10.9% in the past year.

Currently, Franklin Electric Co., Inc.’s price-earnings ratio is 30.2. Franklin Electric Co., Inc.’s trailing 12-month revenue is $2.2 billion with a 7.1% net profit margin. Year-over-year quarterly sales growth most recently was 6.0%. Analysts expect adjusted earnings to reach $4.650 per share for the current fiscal year. Franklin Electric Co., Inc. currently has a 1.1% dividend yield.

As of July 31, 2026, Pentair plc had a $10.4 billion market cap, putting it in the 78th percentile of all stocks. Pentair plc’s stock is down 37.2% in 2026, up 4.1% in the previous five trading days and down 35.4% in the past year.

Currently, Pentair plc’s price-earnings ratio is 16.9. Pentair plc’s trailing 12-month revenue is $4.0 billion with a 16.2% net profit margin. Year-over-year quarterly sales growth most recently was -17.0%. Analysts expect adjusted earnings to reach $4.647 per share for the current fiscal year. Pentair plc currently has a 1.7% dividend yield.

How We Compare Franklin Electric Co., Inc. and Pentair plc 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 Franklin Electric Co., Inc. and Pentair plc’s stock grades to see how they measure up against one another.

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Franklin Electric Co., Inc. and Pentair plc Stock Value Grades

Company	Ticker	Value
Franklin Electric Co., Inc.	FELE	D
Pentair plc	PNR	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.

Franklin Electric Co., Inc. has a Value Score of 39, which is Expensive. Pentair plc has a Value Score of 47, which is Average.

The Value Stock Winner: No Clear Winner

Neither Franklin Electric Co., Inc. or Pentair plc 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 Franklin Electric Co., Inc. or Pentair plc is the better investment when it comes to value.

Franklin Electric Co., Inc. and Pentair plc’s Momentum Grades

Company	Ticker	Momentum
Franklin Electric Co., Inc.	FELE	C
Pentair plc	PNR	F

Momentum grades help to 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. Momentum is based on the price change of a stock over a specified period relative to all other stocks.

Typically, AAII looks at the weighted relative strength over the trailing four quarters. The weighted four-quarter relative strength rank is the relative price change for each of the past four quarters. The most recent quarterly price change is given a weight of 40% and each of the three previous quarters are given a weighting of 20%.

Franklin Electric Co., Inc. has a Momentum Score of 50, which is Average. Pentair plc has a Momentum Score of 17, which is Very Weak.

The Momentum Stock Winner: No Clear Winner

Neither Franklin Electric Co., Inc. or Pentair plc has a strong enough Momentum Grade to be considered a “winner.” Investors considering these companies should do additional due diligence and research to see if either could be a good addition to their portfolios. It’s important to look at a wide range of financial metrics in order to determine if Franklin Electric Co., Inc. or Pentair plc is the better investment when it comes to momentum.

Franklin Electric Co., Inc. and Pentair plc’s Estimate Revisions Grades

Company	Ticker	Earnings Estimate
Franklin Electric Co., Inc.	FELE	B
Pentair plc	PNR	C

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

Estimate revisions offer an indication of what analysts are thinking about the short-term prospects of a firm. Estimate revisions are based on the statistical significance of a firm’s last two quarterly earnings surprises and the percentage change in its consensus estimate for the current fiscal year over the past month and past three months.

Franklin Electric Co., Inc. has a Earnings Estimate Score of 68, which is Positive. Pentair plc has a Earnings Estimate Score of 42, which is Neutral.

The Earnings Estimate Revisions Grade Winner: Franklin Electric Co., Inc.

As you can clearly see from the Earnings Estimate Revisions Grade breakdown above, Franklin Electric Co., Inc. has a better Earnings Estimate Revisions Grade than Pentair plc. For those who are specifically looking for companies with better short-term prospects when compared to other companies in the same industry, Franklin Electric Co., Inc. could be a good stock to invest in. However, it’s important to analyze multiple factors based on a wide range of metrics before deciding whether to buy.

Other Franklin Electric Co., Inc. and Pentair plc Grades

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

Growth investing builds on the idea that stocks of companies exhibiting strong, consistent and prolonged growth outperform those of slower-growth companies. AAII measures growth through consistency of annual sales growth, five-year sales growth rankings adjusted for extreme levels, and consistency of positive annual cash from operations.

AAII’s A+ Investor Quality Grade comes from the ranking of key metrics. Specifically, the quality grade is the percentile rank of the composite 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 F-Score.

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 Franklin Electric Co., Inc. and Pentair plc pass any of our 60+ stock screens that have outperformed the market since their creation.

So, Which Is the Better Investment, Franklin Electric Co., Inc. or Pentair plc Stock?

Overall, Franklin Electric Co., Inc. stock has a Value Score of 39, Momentum Score of 50 and Estimate Revisions Score of 68.

Pentair plc stock has a Value Score of 47, Momentum Score of 17 and Estimate Revisions Score of 42.

Comparing Franklin Electric Co., Inc. and Pentair plc’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.

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.