BlackRock Investment Quality Municipal Trust (BKN) Competitors

BlackRock Investment Quality Municipal Trust (NYSE:BKN) and ASA Gold and Precious Metals (NYSE:ASA) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, risk, earnings, institutional ownership, media sentiment, profitability, community ranking, dividends and analyst recommendations.

Is BKN or ASA a better dividend stock?

BlackRock Investment Quality Municipal Trust pays an annual dividend of $0.63 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.8%. ASA Gold and Precious Metals pays an annual dividend of $0.05 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.1%.

Do institutionals & insiders hold more shares of BKN or ASA?

26.7% of BlackRock Investment Quality Municipal Trust shares are held by institutional investors. 0.3% of ASA Gold and Precious Metals shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Is BKN or ASA more profitable?

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
BlackRock Investment Quality Municipal Trust	N/A	N/A	N/A
ASA Gold and Precious Metals	N/A	N/A	N/A

Does the MarketBeat Community prefer BKN or ASA?

ASA Gold and Precious Metals received 36 more outperform votes than BlackRock Investment Quality Municipal Trust when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 70.49% of users gave ASA Gold and Precious Metals an outperform vote while only 64.10% of users gave BlackRock Investment Quality Municipal Trust an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
BlackRock Investment Quality Municipal Trust	Outperform Votes 50 64.10%	Underperform Votes 28 35.90%
ASA Gold and Precious Metals	Outperform Votes 86 70.49%	Underperform Votes 36 29.51%

Which has better valuation & earnings, BKN or ASA?

Company	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
BlackRock Investment Quality Municipal Trust	$4.23M	44.98	N/A	N/A	N/A
ASA Gold and Precious Metals	$118.94M	6.09	N/A	N/A	N/A

Does the media favor BKN or ASA?

In the previous week, ASA Gold and Precious Metals had 5 more articles in the media than BlackRock Investment Quality Municipal Trust. MarketBeat recorded 7 mentions for ASA Gold and Precious Metals and 2 mentions for BlackRock Investment Quality Municipal Trust. ASA Gold and Precious Metals' average media sentiment score of 0.95 beat BlackRock Investment Quality Municipal Trust's score of 0.45 indicating that ASA Gold and Precious Metals is being referred to more favorably in the news media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
BlackRock Investment Quality Municipal Trust	1 Very Positive mention(s)	0 Positive mention(s)	0 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Neutral
ASA Gold and Precious Metals	3 Very Positive mention(s)	3 Positive mention(s)	1 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive

Which has more volatility and risk, BKN or ASA?

BlackRock Investment Quality Municipal Trust has a beta of 0.72, indicating that its stock price is 28% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, ASA Gold and Precious Metals has a beta of 0.75, indicating that its stock price is 25% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

ASA Gold and Precious Metals beats BlackRock Investment Quality Municipal Trust on 7 of the 10 factors compared between the two stocks.