ASPN vs. VSEC, NX, BXC, JELD, HOV, BZH, LOMA, AGX, USLM, and TPC
Should you be buying Aspen Aerogels stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Aspen Aerogels include VSE (VSEC), Quanex Building Products (NX), BlueLinx (BXC), JELD-WEN (JELD), Hovnanian Enterprises (HOV), Beazer Homes USA (BZH), Loma Negra Compañía Industrial Argentina Sociedad Anónima (LOMA), Argan (AGX), United States Lime & Minerals (USLM), and Tutor Perini (TPC). These companies are all part of the "construction" sector.
Aspen Aerogels (NYSE:ASPN) and VSE (NASDAQ:VSEC) are both small-cap construction companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, community ranking, earnings, media sentiment, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, profitability, dividends and risk.
Aspen Aerogels received 179 more outperform votes than VSE when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 64.77% of users gave Aspen Aerogels an outperform vote while only 58.98% of users gave VSE an outperform vote.
97.6% of Aspen Aerogels shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 91.5% of VSE shares are held by institutional investors. 5.2% of Aspen Aerogels shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 14.6% of VSE shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
VSE has a net margin of 4.55% compared to Aspen Aerogels' net margin of -19.19%. VSE's return on equity of 8.72% beat Aspen Aerogels' return on equity.
VSE has higher revenue and earnings than Aspen Aerogels. Aspen Aerogels is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than VSE, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
In the previous week, VSE had 2 more articles in the media than Aspen Aerogels. MarketBeat recorded 12 mentions for VSE and 10 mentions for Aspen Aerogels. VSE's average media sentiment score of 0.51 beat Aspen Aerogels' score of 0.44 indicating that VSE is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Aspen Aerogels has a beta of 2.04, indicating that its share price is 104% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, VSE has a beta of 1.67, indicating that its share price is 67% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Aspen Aerogels presently has a consensus price target of $19.00, indicating a potential upside of 17.50%. VSE has a consensus price target of $78.25, indicating a potential upside of 1.62%. Given Aspen Aerogels' higher possible upside, equities analysts plainly believe Aspen Aerogels is more favorable than VSE.
Summary
VSE beats Aspen Aerogels on 10 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding ASPN and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
Skip ChartThis 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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