In celebration of March Madness, the Motley Fool is pitting 16 editor-selected companies in a fierce Stock Madness bracket. We will show you how the companies rank based on five key metrics, but your votes will determine the winner of each match-up.  

Today's matchup is Buffalo Wild Wings (Nasdaq: BWLD) vs. Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG). Using five short-of-scientific-but-carefully chosen criteria, let's determine which is the better buy according to the numbers:

 

Factor

Buffalo Wild Wings

Chipotle

Cheapness

(P/E ratio)

28.9

28.9

Growth

(5-year growth rate)

34.2%

89.1%

Operations

(net margin %)

5.69%

8.35%

Balance Sheet

(debt/equity ratio)

.00

.01

CAPS Rating

(scale of 1 to 5 stars)

3 Stars

3 Stars

Round 1: Cheapness

Advantage: Buffalo Wild Wings (by a hair). Cheapness is determined by P/E ratio. The lower the better. Be careful of earnings near zero that skew the ratio, one-time gains and losses, and pasts that aren’t indicative of futures (the more dynamic the industry, the more this is true).

Round 2: Growth

Advantage: Chipotle. Growth here is the trailing 5-year EPS growth rate. This trailing earnings growth helps put notoriously-optimistic Wall Street projections in perspective.

Round 3: Operations

Advantage: Chipotle. Net margin percentage shows how efficiently a company turns revenue into profit. The more similar the business models, the more relevant the comparison.

Round 4: Balance sheet

Advantage: Buffalo Wild Wings. As with net margins, the debt to capital ratio is most relevant in comparing companies in similar industries. In this battle we give the nod to the lower-debt company, but attention should also be paid to the cost of debt, interest coverage ratios, and the stability of the business (the more stable a company’s operations, the more debt it can safely carry).

Round 5: CAPS rating

Advantage: Buffalo Wild Wings. A company’s CAPS rating is our community’s opinion of the stock. Buffalo Wild Wings has a slightly greater numerical CAPS rating than Chipotle's (even though they have the same number of stars). You can get more information on your stocks -- and our community’s opinions of those stocks -- by clicking over to CAPS area.

Each of these five rankings need more context to determine how these companies stack up against each other and bracket competitors Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) and Starbucks (Nasdaq: SBUX). But these basic numbers suggest that Buffalo Wild Wings is a better buy. It’s up to you, though. Vote for the winner in the poll located below the bracket.