APD vs. LIN, VNTR, TROX, MTX, KRO, LXU, VHI, NL, LXFR, and HGAS
Should you be buying Air Products and Chemicals stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Air Products and Chemicals include Linde (LIN), Venator Materials (VNTR), Tronox (TROX), Minerals Technologies (MTX), Kronos Worldwide (KRO), LSB Industries (LXU), Valhi (VHI), NL Industries (NL), Luxfer (LXFR), and Global Gas (HGAS). These companies are all part of the "industrial inorganic chemicals" industry.
Air Products and Chemicals (NYSE:APD) and Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) are both large-cap basic materials companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, risk, media sentiment, analyst recommendations, profitability, earnings, dividends, valuation and community ranking.
Air Products and Chemicals received 276 more outperform votes than Linde when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 65.17% of users gave Air Products and Chemicals an outperform vote while only 63.55% of users gave Linde an outperform vote.
Air Products and Chemicals pays an annual dividend of $7.08 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.7%. Linde pays an annual dividend of $5.56 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.3%. Air Products and Chemicals pays out 63.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Linde pays out 43.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years.
Linde has higher revenue and earnings than Air Products and Chemicals. Air Products and Chemicals is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Linde, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Air Products and Chemicals has a net margin of 20.32% compared to Linde's net margin of 19.26%. Linde's return on equity of 17.49% beat Air Products and Chemicals' return on equity.
81.7% of Air Products and Chemicals shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 82.8% of Linde shares are held by institutional investors. 0.4% of Air Products and Chemicals shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.7% of Linde shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
Air Products and Chemicals has a beta of 0.8, meaning that its share price is 20% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Linde has a beta of 0.94, meaning that its share price is 6% less volatile than the S&P 500.
In the previous week, Air Products and Chemicals had 8 more articles in the media than Linde. MarketBeat recorded 26 mentions for Air Products and Chemicals and 18 mentions for Linde. Linde's average media sentiment score of 0.98 beat Air Products and Chemicals' score of 0.70 indicating that Linde is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Air Products and Chemicals currently has a consensus price target of $273.77, indicating a potential upside of 5.19%. Linde has a consensus price target of $468.83, indicating a potential upside of 10.01%. Given Linde's stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Linde is more favorable than Air Products and Chemicals.
Summary
Linde beats Air Products and Chemicals on 14 of the 19 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding APD 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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