Head to Head Contrast: Highway (NASDAQ:HIHO) & Mueller Industries (NYSE:MLI)

Mueller Industries (NYSE:MLI) and Highway (NASDAQ:HIHO) are both industrials companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, earnings, institutional ownership, risk, dividends, valuation and profitability.

Volatility and Risk

Mueller Industries has a beta of 1.01, indicating that its stock price is 1% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Highway has a beta of 0.26, indicating that its stock price is 74% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for Mueller Industries and Highway, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Mueller Industries	0	0	1	0	3.00
Highway	0	0	0	0	0.00

Mueller Industries presently has a consensus price target of $105.00, indicating a potential upside of 25.20%. Given Mueller Industries’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Mueller Industries is more favorable than Highway.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

94.5% of Mueller Industries shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 13.2% of Highway shares are held by institutional investors. 2.7% of Mueller Industries shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 32.1% of Highway 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.

Dividends

Mueller Industries pays an annual dividend of $1.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.2%. Highway pays an annual dividend of $0.07 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.6%. Mueller Industries pays out 18.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Highway pays out -41.2% 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. Mueller Industries has increased its dividend for 5 consecutive years. Highway is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Profitability

This table compares Mueller Industries and Highway’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Mueller Industries	15.92%	23.17%	19.51%
Highway	-10.36%	1.53%	0.93%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Mueller Industries and Highway”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Mueller Industries	$3.77 billion	2.46	$604.88 million	$5.49	15.28
Highway	$7.41 million	0.89	-$960,000.00	($0.17)	-8.86

Mueller Industries has higher revenue and earnings than Highway. Highway is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Mueller Industries, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Mueller Industries beats Highway on 13 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Mueller Industries

Mueller Industries, Inc. manufactures and sells copper, brass, aluminum, and plastic products in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, South Korea, the Middle East, China, and Mexico. It operates through three segments: Piping Systems, Industrial Metals, and Climate. The Piping Systems segment offers copper tubes, fittings, line sets, and pipe nipples. It also resells steel pipes, brass and plastic plumbing valves, malleable iron fittings and faucets, and plumbing specialties; and supplies water tubes. This segment sells its products to wholesalers in the plumbing and refrigeration markets, distributors to the manufactured housing and recreational vehicle industries, building material retailers, and air-conditioning original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). The Industrial Metals segment manufactures brass, bronze, and copper alloy rods; plumbing brass, valves, fittings, and gas assemblies; cold-form aluminum and copper products; machining of aluminum, steel, brass, and cast iron impacts and castings; brass and aluminum forgings; brass, aluminum, and stainless-steel valves; fluid control solutions; and gas train assembles to OEMs in the industrial, construction, HVAC, plumbing, and refrigeration markets. The Climate segment offers valves, protection devices, and brass fittings for various OEMs in the commercial HVAC and refrigeration markets; high-pressure components and accessories for the air-conditioning and refrigeration markets; coaxial heat exchangers and twisted tubes for the HVAC, geothermal, refrigeration, swimming pool heat pump, marine, ice machine, commercial boiler, and heat reclamation markets; and insulated HVAC flexible duct systems. Mueller Industries, Inc. was founded in 1917 and is headquartered in Collierville, Tennessee.

About Highway

Highway Holdings Limited, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and supplies metal, plastic, electric, and electronic components, subassemblies, and finished products for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and contract manufacturers. It operates through two segments, Metal Stamping and Mechanical OEM; and Electric OEM. The company also trades in plastic injection products; and manufactures and assembles automation equipment. Its products are used in the manufacture of products, such as photocopiers, laser printers, print cartridges, electrical connectors, electrical circuits, vacuum cleaners, LED power supplies, stepping motors, pumps for dishwashers, and other washing machine components. In addition, the company assists customers in the design and development of the tooling used in the metal and plastic manufacturing process, as well as provides an array of other manufacturing and engineering services, including metal stamping, screen printing, plastic injection molding, pad printing, and electronic assembly of printed circuit boards. It operates in Hong Kong and China, Europe, North America, and other Asian countries. Highway Holdings Limited was incorporated in 1990 and is headquartered in Sheung Shui, Hong Kong.