Stepan (SCL) Competitors

Stepan (NYSE:SCL) and NewMarket (NYSE:NEU) are both basic materials companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their risk, analyst recommendations, valuation, media sentiment, institutional ownership, earnings, profitability, dividends and community ranking.

Which has more volatility and risk, SCL or NEU?

Stepan has a beta of 0.82, meaning that its share price is 18% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, NewMarket has a beta of 0.41, meaning that its share price is 59% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Is SCL or NEU more profitable?

NewMarket has a net margin of 16.59% compared to Stepan's net margin of 2.31%. NewMarket's return on equity of 35.48% beat Stepan's return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Stepan	2.31%	4.21%	2.14%
NewMarket	16.59%	35.48%	14.68%

Does the MarketBeat Community prefer SCL or NEU?

Stepan received 19 more outperform votes than NewMarket when rated by MarketBeat users. However, 64.17% of users gave NewMarket an outperform vote while only 55.19% of users gave Stepan an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
Stepan	Outperform Votes 250 55.19%	Underperform Votes 203 44.81%
NewMarket	Outperform Votes 231 64.17%	Underperform Votes 129 35.83%

Is SCL or NEU a better dividend stock?

Stepan pays an annual dividend of $1.54 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.7%. NewMarket pays an annual dividend of $11.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.0%. Stepan pays out 69.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. NewMarket pays out 22.8% 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. Stepan has increased its dividend for 57 consecutive years. Stepan is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Which has higher earnings and valuation, SCL or NEU?

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.

Company	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Stepan	$2.18B	0.60	$40.20M	$2.21	26.21
NewMarket	$2.79B	1.87	$462.41M	$48.21	11.37

Do institutionals & insiders hold more shares of SCL or NEU?

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 insiders. Comparatively, 20.4% of NewMarket shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Does the media favor SCL or NEU?

In the previous week, NewMarket had 6 more articles in the media than Stepan. MarketBeat recorded 7 mentions for NewMarket and 1 mentions for Stepan. NewMarket's average media sentiment score of 1.71 beat Stepan's score of 1.71 indicating that NewMarket is being referred to more favorably in the news media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
Stepan	1 Very Positive mention(s)	0 Positive mention(s)	0 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Very Positive
NewMarket	7 Very Positive mention(s)	0 Positive mention(s)	0 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Very Positive

Summary

NewMarket beats Stepan on 12 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.