SCL vs. BCPC, NEU, FUL, ASH, SXT, KWR, IOSP, MTX, FF, and FTK
Should you be buying Stepan stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Stepan include Balchem (BCPC), NewMarket (NEU), H.B. Fuller (FUL), Ashland (ASH), Sensient Technologies (SXT), Quaker Chemical (KWR), Innospec (IOSP), Minerals Technologies (MTX), FutureFuel (FF), and Flotek Industries (FTK). These companies are all part of the "specialty chemicals" industry.
Balchem (NASDAQ:BCPC) and Stepan (NYSE:SCL) are both basic materials companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their community ranking, dividends, media sentiment, analyst recommendations, earnings, institutional ownership, valuation, profitability and risk.
87.9% of Balchem shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 82.7% of Stepan shares are held by institutional investors. 1.3% of Balchem shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 6.9% of Stepan shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
Balchem presently has a consensus price target of $185.00, indicating a potential upside of 9.71%. Stepan has a consensus price target of $89.00, indicating a potential upside of 23.20%. Given Stepan's higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Stepan is more favorable than Balchem.
Balchem has a beta of 0.68, meaning that its share price is 32% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Stepan has a beta of 0.8, meaning that its share price is 20% less volatile than the S&P 500.
In the previous week, Balchem and Balchem both had 1 articles in the media. Balchem's average media sentiment score of 1.05 beat Stepan's score of 0.88 indicating that Balchem is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Balchem received 140 more outperform votes than Stepan when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 66.72% of users gave Balchem an outperform vote while only 55.26% of users gave Stepan an outperform vote.
Balchem pays an annual dividend of $0.39 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.2%. Stepan pays an annual dividend of $1.50 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.1%. Balchem pays out 11.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Stepan pays out 90.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Balchem has raised its dividend for 15 consecutive years and Stepan has raised its dividend for 56 consecutive years. Stepan is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
Balchem has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Stepan. Stepan is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Balchem, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Balchem has a net margin of 12.52% compared to Stepan's net margin of 1.58%. Balchem's return on equity of 10.94% beat Stepan's return on equity.
Summary
Balchem beats Stepan on 12 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding SCL 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 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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