APD vs. LIN, VNTR, TROX, MTX, KRO, LXU, VHI, NL, LXFR, and HGAS
Should you be buying Air Products and Chemicals stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Air Products and Chemicals include Linde (LIN), Venator Materials (VNTR), Tronox (TROX), Minerals Technologies (MTX), Kronos Worldwide (KRO), LSB Industries (LXU), Valhi (VHI), NL Industries (NL), Luxfer (LXFR), and Global Gas (HGAS). These companies are all part of the "industrial inorganic chemicals" industry.
Air Products and Chemicals (NYSE:APD) and Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) are both large-cap basic materials companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, media sentiment, valuation, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, profitability, dividends, earnings and community ranking.
In the previous week, Air Products and Chemicals had 12 more articles in the media than Linde. MarketBeat recorded 23 mentions for Air Products and Chemicals and 11 mentions for Linde. Linde's average media sentiment score of 1.31 beat Air Products and Chemicals' score of 0.79 indicating that Linde is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Air Products and Chemicals presently has a consensus target price of $287.29, suggesting a potential upside of 1.74%. Linde has a consensus target price of $468.83, suggesting a potential upside of 8.53%. Given Linde's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Linde is more favorable than Air Products and Chemicals.
Air Products and Chemicals has a net margin of 20.32% compared to Linde's net margin of 19.26%. Linde's return on equity of 17.49% beat Air Products and Chemicals' return on equity.
Air Products and Chemicals has a beta of 0.84, indicating that its share price is 16% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Linde has a beta of 0.95, indicating that its share price is 5% less volatile than the S&P 500.
81.7% of Air Products and Chemicals shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 82.8% of Linde shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.4% of Air Products and Chemicals shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.7% of Linde shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
Linde has higher revenue and earnings than Air Products and Chemicals. Air Products and Chemicals is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Linde, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Air Products and Chemicals pays an annual dividend of $7.08 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.5%. Linde pays an annual dividend of $5.56 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.3%. Air Products and Chemicals pays out 63.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Linde pays out 43.1% 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.
Air Products and Chemicals received 280 more outperform votes than Linde when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 65.11% of users gave Air Products and Chemicals an outperform vote while only 63.55% of users gave Linde an outperform vote.
Summary
Linde beats Air Products and Chemicals on 14 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding APD 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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