MRTN vs. HTLD, WERN, ULH, CVLG, YRCW, ARCB, SNDR, DAC, LPG, and CMRE
Should you be buying Marten Transport stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Marten Transport include Heartland Express (HTLD), Werner Enterprises (WERN), Universal Logistics (ULH), Covenant Logistics Group (CVLG), YRC Worldwide (YRCW), ArcBest (ARCB), Schneider National (SNDR), Danaos (DAC), Dorian LPG (LPG), and Costamare (CMRE). These companies are all part of the "transportation" sector.
Marten Transport (NASDAQ:MRTN) and Heartland Express (NASDAQ:HTLD) are both small-cap transportation companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their media sentiment, valuation, dividends, community ranking, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, risk, profitability and earnings.
Marten Transport has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Heartland Express. Marten Transport is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Heartland Express, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
In the previous week, Marten Transport had 7 more articles in the media than Heartland Express. MarketBeat recorded 11 mentions for Marten Transport and 4 mentions for Heartland Express. Heartland Express' average media sentiment score of 0.47 beat Marten Transport's score of 0.47 indicating that Heartland Express is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Heartland Express received 86 more outperform votes than Marten Transport when rated by MarketBeat users. However, 54.96% of users gave Marten Transport an outperform vote while only 49.23% of users gave Heartland Express an outperform vote.
Marten Transport pays an annual dividend of $0.24 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.5%. Heartland Express pays an annual dividend of $0.08 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.8%. Marten Transport pays out 27.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Heartland Express pays out 44.4% 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. Marten Transport is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
69.1% of Marten Transport shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 53.5% of Heartland Express shares are owned by institutional investors. 22.9% of Marten Transport shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 39.6% of Heartland Express shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
Marten Transport has a net margin of 6.22% compared to Heartland Express' net margin of 1.22%. Marten Transport's return on equity of 9.48% beat Heartland Express' return on equity.
Marten Transport currently has a consensus price target of $26.00, suggesting a potential upside of 62.81%. Heartland Express has a consensus price target of $13.75, suggesting a potential upside of 35.33%. Given Marten Transport's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Marten Transport is more favorable than Heartland Express.
Marten Transport has a beta of 0.79, indicating that its share price is 21% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Heartland Express has a beta of 0.62, indicating that its share price is 38% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Summary
Marten Transport beats Heartland Express on 15 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding MRTN 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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