NL Industries (NL) Competitors

NL Industries (NYSE:NL) and Steelcase (NYSE:SCS) are both small-cap basic materials companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, risk, institutional ownership, community ranking, profitability, valuation, analyst recommendations, media sentiment and dividends.

Does the MarketBeat Community prefer NL or SCS?

Steelcase received 122 more outperform votes than NL Industries when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 65.34% of users gave Steelcase an outperform vote while only 59.87% of users gave NL Industries an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
NL Industries	Outperform Votes 191 59.87%	Underperform Votes 128 40.13%
Steelcase	Outperform Votes 313 65.34%	Underperform Votes 166 34.66%

Do analysts prefer NL or SCS?

NL Industries currently has a consensus target price of $6.00, indicating a potential downside of 22.08%. Steelcase has a consensus target price of $17.00, indicating a potential upside of 49.89%. Given Steelcase's stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Steelcase is more favorable than NL Industries.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
NL Industries	1 Sell rating(s)	0 Hold rating(s)	0 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	1.00
Steelcase	0 Sell rating(s)	0 Hold rating(s)	2 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	3.00

Is NL or SCS more profitable?

NL Industries has a net margin of 38.69% compared to Steelcase's net margin of 3.63%. NL Industries' return on equity of 14.74% beat Steelcase's return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
NL Industries	38.69%	14.74%	10.09%
Steelcase	3.63%	14.20%	5.75%

Do institutionals & insiders have more ownership in NL or SCS?

10.7% of NL Industries shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 92.4% of Steelcase shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.3% of NL Industries shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 13.0% of Steelcase shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Which has preferable valuation and earnings, NL or SCS?

Steelcase has higher revenue and earnings than NL Industries. NL Industries is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Steelcase, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Company	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
NL Industries	$145.94M	2.58	-$2.31M	$1.38	5.58
Steelcase	$3.15B	0.41	$81.10M	$0.96	11.81

Which has more risk and volatility, NL or SCS?

NL Industries has a beta of 0.56, indicating that its share price is 44% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Steelcase has a beta of 1.33, indicating that its share price is 33% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Does the media refer more to NL or SCS?

In the previous week, Steelcase had 27 more articles in the media than NL Industries. MarketBeat recorded 28 mentions for Steelcase and 1 mentions for NL Industries. Steelcase's average media sentiment score of 0.37 beat NL Industries' score of -1.00 indicating that Steelcase is being referred to more favorably in the news media.

Company	Overall Sentiment
NL Industries	Negative
Steelcase	Neutral

Is NL or SCS a better dividend stock?

NL Industries pays an annual dividend of $0.36 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.7%. Steelcase pays an annual dividend of $0.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.5%. NL Industries pays out 26.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Steelcase pays out 41.7% 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. NL Industries is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Summary

Steelcase beats NL Industries on 13 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.