ASH vs. BCPC, IOSP, HUN, CC, OLN, NGVT, HWKN, FMC, CRS, and ALTM
Should you be buying Ashland stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Ashland include Balchem (BCPC), Innospec (IOSP), Huntsman (HUN), Chemours (CC), Olin (OLN), Ingevity (NGVT), Hawkins (HWKN), FMC (FMC), Carpenter Technology (CRS), and Arcadium Lithium (ALTM). These companies are all part of the "basic materials" sector.
Ashland (NYSE:ASH) and Balchem (NASDAQ:BCPC) are both mid-cap basic materials companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their media sentiment, risk, earnings, profitability, institutional ownership, dividends, analyst recommendations, valuation and community ranking.
Ashland received 204 more outperform votes than Balchem when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 68.81% of users gave Ashland an outperform vote while only 66.72% of users gave Balchem an outperform vote.
94.0% of Ashland shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 87.9% of Balchem shares are held by institutional investors. 0.7% of Ashland shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.8% of Balchem shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
Balchem has a net margin of 12.35% compared to Ashland's net margin of 9.09%. Balchem's return on equity of 11.03% beat Ashland's return on equity.
Ashland pays an annual dividend of $1.54 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.6%. Balchem pays an annual dividend of $0.39 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.3%. Ashland pays out 40.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Balchem pays out 11.0% 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 presently has a consensus target price of $106.44, suggesting a potential upside of 9.10%. Balchem has a consensus target price of $170.00, suggesting a potential upside of 10.91%. Given Balchem's stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Balchem is more favorable than Ashland.
In the previous week, Ashland had 24 more articles in the media than Balchem. MarketBeat recorded 42 mentions for Ashland and 18 mentions for Balchem. Balchem's average media sentiment score of 0.68 beat Ashland's score of 0.37 indicating that Balchem is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Ashland has a beta of 0.92, meaning that its stock price is 8% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Balchem has a beta of 0.72, meaning that its stock price is 28% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Ashland has higher revenue and earnings than Balchem. Ashland is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Balchem, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Summary
Ashland and Balchem tied by winning 10 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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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.
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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