Analyzing Webco Industries (OTCMKTS:WEBC) & MUELLER WATER PRODUCTS (NYSE:MWA)

Webco Industries (OTCMKTS:WEBC) and MUELLER WATER PRODUCTS (NYSE:MWA) are both industrials companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, risk, analyst recommendations, valuation, institutional ownership, dividends and profitability.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations for Webco Industries and MUELLER WATER PRODUCTS, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Webco Industries	0	0	0	0	0.00
MUELLER WATER PRODUCTS	0	3	1	0	2.25

MUELLER WATER PRODUCTS has a consensus price target of $26.25, suggesting a potential upside of 5.89%. Given MUELLER WATER PRODUCTS’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe MUELLER WATER PRODUCTS is more favorable than Webco Industries.

Risk and Volatility

Webco Industries has a beta of 0.04, indicating that its stock price is 96% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, MUELLER WATER PRODUCTS has a beta of 1.18, indicating that its stock price is 18% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Webco Industries and MUELLER WATER PRODUCTS’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Webco Industries	1.23%	N/A	N/A
MUELLER WATER PRODUCTS	10.48%	21.31%	10.86%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

91.7% of MUELLER WATER PRODUCTS shares are held by institutional investors. 54.4% of Webco Industries shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.1% of MUELLER WATER PRODUCTS shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Webco Industries and MUELLER WATER PRODUCTS”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Webco Industries	$608.44 million	0.22	$16.05 million	$8.95	21.12
MUELLER WATER PRODUCTS	$1.31 billion	2.95	$115.90 million	$0.91	27.24

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

Summary

MUELLER WATER PRODUCTS beats Webco Industries on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Webco Industries

Webco Industries, Inc. manufactures and distributes carbon steel, stainless steel, and other metal tubular products. The company offers cold drawn welded and seamless tubing products for use in air cooler and heater, boiler tube, coiled tubing, steam surface condenser, feed water heater, heat exchanger, instrumentation tubing, mechanical tube, welded pipe, pressure tubing, and specialty stainless tubing, as well as original equipment manufacturer applications. It serves power-gen tubing, oil and gas tubular, process tubing, and automotive/industrial tubular industries. Webco Industries, Inc. was founded in 1969 and is headquartered in Sand Springs, Oklahoma.

About MUELLER WATER PRODUCTS

Mueller Water Products, Inc. manufactures and markets products and services for the transmission, distribution, and measurement of water used by municipalities, and the residential and non-residential construction industries in the United States, Israel, and internationally. It operates in two segments, Water Flow Solutions and Water Management Solutions. The Water Flow Solutions segment provides valves for water systems, such as iron gate, butterfly, tapping, check, knife, plug, and ball valves, which are used to control distribution and transmission of potable water and non-potable water, as well as in water transmission or distribution, water treatment facilities, or industrial applications. It also offers service brass products. The Water Management Solutions segment offers dry-barrel and wet-barrel fire hydrants for water infrastructure development; fire protection systems, and water infrastructure repair and replacement projects; pipe repair products, such as couplings, grips, and clamps used to repair leaks; residential, fire line, and commercial water metering products, systems, and services; water leak detection and pipe condition assessment products and services; machines and tools for tapping, drilling, extracting, installing, and stopping-off; gas valve products for use in gas distribution systems; and intelligent water solutions, including pressure control valves, advanced pressure management, network analytics, event management, and date logging. It sells its products under the Canada Valve, Centurion, Ez-Max, Hydro Gate, Hydro-Guard, HYMAX, HYMAX VERSA, Jones, Krausz, Milliken, Mueller, Pratt, Pratt Industrial, Repamax, Repaflex, Singer, Echologics, Echoshore, ePulse, Hersey, LeakFinderRT, LeakFinderST, LeakListener, LeakTuner, Mi.Echo, Mi.Net, Mueller Systems, Sentryx, and U.S. Pipe Valve and Hydrant brands. Mueller Water Products, Inc. was founded in 1857 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.