BCPC vs. ASH, IOSP, HUN, CC, OLN, NGVT, FMC, HWKN, ALTM, and AMR
Should you be buying Balchem stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Balchem include Ashland (ASH), Innospec (IOSP), Huntsman (HUN), Chemours (CC), Olin (OLN), Ingevity (NGVT), FMC (FMC), Hawkins (HWKN), Arcadium Lithium (ALTM), and Alpha Metallurgical Resources (AMR). 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 superior stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their media sentiment, institutional ownership, profitability, analyst recommendations, community ranking, risk, dividends, earnings and valuation.
Ashland received 205 more outperform votes than Balchem when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 68.89% of users gave Ashland an outperform vote while only 66.67% of users gave Balchem an outperform vote.
Balchem pays an annual dividend of $0.79 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.5%. Ashland pays an annual dividend of $1.54 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.6%. Balchem pays out 22.3% 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 currently has a consensus target price of $135.00, indicating a potential downside of 10.24%. Ashland has a consensus target price of $103.11, indicating a potential upside of 7.58%. Given Ashland's higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Ashland is more favorable than Balchem.
Balchem has a net margin of 11.77% compared to Ashland's net margin of 9.09%. Balchem's return on equity of 10.69% beat Ashland's return on equity.
In the previous week, Ashland had 27 more articles in the media than Balchem. MarketBeat recorded 42 mentions for Ashland and 15 mentions for Balchem. Balchem's average media sentiment score of 0.69 beat Ashland's score of 0.35 indicating that Balchem is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Balchem has a beta of 0.72, suggesting that its stock price is 28% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Ashland has a beta of 0.92, suggesting that its stock price is 8% less volatile than the S&P 500.
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.
87.9% of Balchem shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 93.9% of Ashland shares are held by institutional investors. 1.8% of Balchem shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.7% of Ashland shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
Summary
Ashland beats Balchem on 11 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding BCPC 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 NASDAQ 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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