SCL vs. NEU, ASH, BCPC, FUL, SXT, KWR, IOSP, MTX, FF, and FTK
Should you be buying Stepan stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Stepan include NewMarket (NEU), Ashland (ASH), Balchem (BCPC), H.B. Fuller (FUL), Sensient Technologies (SXT), Quaker Chemical (KWR), Innospec (IOSP), Minerals Technologies (MTX), FutureFuel (FF), and Flotek Industries (FTK). These companies are all part of the "specialty chemicals" industry.
Stepan (NYSE:SCL) and NewMarket (NYSE:NEU) are both basic materials companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, valuation, earnings, community ranking, analyst recommendations, media sentiment, profitability, institutional ownership and risk.
NewMarket has a net margin of 14.82% compared to Stepan's net margin of 1.71%. NewMarket's return on equity of 38.99% beat Stepan's return on equity.
Stepan presently has a consensus price target of $89.00, suggesting a potential upside of 2.10%. Given Stepan's higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Stepan is more favorable than NewMarket.
In the previous week, NewMarket had 1 more articles in the media than Stepan. MarketBeat recorded 2 mentions for NewMarket and 1 mentions for Stepan. NewMarket's average media sentiment score of 1.11 beat Stepan's score of 0.00 indicating that NewMarket is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Stepan has a beta of 0.83, indicating that its share price is 17% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, NewMarket has a beta of 0.51, indicating that its share price is 49% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Stepan received 21 more outperform votes than NewMarket when rated by MarketBeat users. However, 63.35% of users gave NewMarket an outperform vote while only 55.45% of users gave Stepan an outperform vote.
82.7% of Stepan shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 61.1% of NewMarket shares are owned by institutional investors. 6.9% of Stepan shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 20.4% of NewMarket shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
NewMarket has higher revenue and earnings than Stepan. NewMarket is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Stepan, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Stepan pays an annual dividend of $1.50 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.7%. NewMarket pays an annual dividend of $10.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.9%. Stepan pays out 90.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. NewMarket pays out 24.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. NewMarket is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
Summary
NewMarket beats Stepan on 13 of the 19 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding SCL and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
This chart shows the average media sentiment of NYSE and its competitors over the past 90 days as caculated by MarketBeat. The averaged score is equivalent to the following: Very Negative Sentiment <= -1.5, Negative Sentiment > -1.5 and <= -0.5, Neutral Sentiment > -0.5 and < 0.5, Positive Sentiment >= 0.5 and < 1.5, and Very Positive Sentiment >= 1.5.
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