ASH vs. BCPC, IOSP, HUN, OLN, FMC, HWKN, NGVT, ALTM, BVN, and NEU
Should you be buying Ashland stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Ashland include Balchem (BCPC), Innospec (IOSP), Huntsman (HUN), Olin (OLN), FMC (FMC), Hawkins (HWKN), Ingevity (NGVT), Arcadium Lithium (ALTM), Compañía de Minas Buenaventura S.A.A. (BVN), and NewMarket (NEU). These companies are all part of the "basic materials" sector.
Balchem (NASDAQ:BCPC) and Ashland (NYSE:ASH) are both mid-cap basic materials companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, valuation, community ranking, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, earnings, profitability, media sentiment and dividends.
Balchem pays an annual dividend of $0.39 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.3%. Ashland pays an annual dividend of $1.54 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.5%. Balchem pays out 11.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Ashland pays out 40.8% 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. Balchem has raised its dividend for 15 consecutive years and Ashland has raised its dividend for 14 consecutive years.
Balchem has a beta of 0.72, meaning that its share price is 28% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Ashland has a beta of 0.92, meaning that its share price is 8% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Balchem presently has a consensus target price of $170.00, indicating a potential upside of 12.23%. Ashland has a consensus target price of $106.44, indicating a potential upside of 6.76%. Given Ashland's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts plainly believe Balchem is more favorable than Ashland.
87.9% of Balchem shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 94.0% of Ashland shares are held by institutional investors. 1.3% of Balchem shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.7% of Ashland shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
In the previous week, Ashland had 11 more articles in the media than Balchem. MarketBeat recorded 17 mentions for Ashland and 6 mentions for Balchem. Ashland's average media sentiment score of 1.42 beat Balchem's score of 0.01 indicating that Balchem is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Balchem has a net margin of 12.35% compared to Balchem's net margin of 9.09%. Ashland's return on equity of 11.03% beat Balchem's return on equity.
Ashland has higher revenue and earnings than Balchem. Ashland is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Balchem, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Ashland received 204 more outperform votes than Balchem when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 68.76% of users gave Ashland an outperform vote while only 66.78% of users gave Balchem an outperform vote.
Summary
Balchem beats Ashland on 11 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding ASH 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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