ASH vs. ALB, NEU, CE, BCPC, SXT, FUL, IOSP, KWR, MTX, and SCL
Should you be buying Ashland stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Ashland include Albemarle (ALB), NewMarket (NEU), Celanese (CE), Balchem (BCPC), Sensient Technologies (SXT), H.B. Fuller (FUL), Innospec (IOSP), Quaker Chemical (KWR), Minerals Technologies (MTX), and Stepan (SCL). These companies are all part of the "specialty chemicals" industry.
Ashland vs. Its Competitors
Ashland (NYSE:ASH) and Albemarle (NYSE:ALB) are both mid-cap basic materials companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their community ranking, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, media sentiment, earnings, profitability, valuation, dividends and risk.
Albemarle received 175 more outperform votes than Ashland when rated by MarketBeat users. However, 68.09% of users gave Ashland an outperform vote while only 61.78% of users gave Albemarle an outperform vote.
Ashland pays an annual dividend of $1.66 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.1%. Albemarle pays an annual dividend of $1.62 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.5%. Ashland pays out -69.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Albemarle pays out -14.6% 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. Ashland has increased its dividend for 16 consecutive years and Albemarle has increased its dividend for 30 consecutive years. Ashland is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
Ashland has a beta of 0.52, meaning that its stock price is 48% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Albemarle has a beta of 1.61, meaning that its stock price is 61% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Ashland has a net margin of -1.12% compared to Albemarle's net margin of -21.93%. Ashland's return on equity of 7.41% beat Albemarle's return on equity.
Ashland has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Albemarle. Ashland is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Albemarle, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
93.9% of Ashland shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 92.9% of Albemarle shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.0% of Ashland shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.3% of Albemarle shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
In the previous week, Ashland had 19 more articles in the media than Albemarle. MarketBeat recorded 22 mentions for Ashland and 3 mentions for Albemarle. Albemarle's average media sentiment score of 0.38 beat Ashland's score of 0.21 indicating that Albemarle is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Ashland presently has a consensus price target of $68.60, indicating a potential upside of 28.60%. Albemarle has a consensus price target of $91.62, indicating a potential upside of 40.71%. Given Albemarle's higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Albemarle is more favorable than Ashland.
Summary
Ashland beats Albemarle on 12 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
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New MarketBeat Followers Over Time
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.
Media Sentiment Over Time
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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This page (NYSE:ASH) was last updated on 6/12/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff
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