Financial Review: Barnwell Industries (NYSE:BRN) and California Resources (NYSE:CRC)

California Resources (NYSE:CRC) and Barnwell Industries (NYSE:BRN) are both oils/energy companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, profitability, analyst recommendations, valuation, risk, dividends and institutional ownership.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares California Resources and Barnwell Industries’ top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
California Resources	$2.80 billion	1.30	$564.00 million	$3.49	15.25
Barnwell Industries	$25.27 million	0.93	-$960,000.00	($0.33)	-7.12

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

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current recommendations for California Resources and Barnwell Industries, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
California Resources	0	2	5	0	2.71
Barnwell Industries	0	0	0	0	N/A

California Resources presently has a consensus target price of $63.00, suggesting a potential upside of 18.38%. Given California Resources’ higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe California Resources is more favorable than Barnwell Industries.

Risk & Volatility

California Resources has a beta of 0.97, suggesting that its share price is 3% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Barnwell Industries has a beta of 0.11, suggesting that its share price is 89% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

97.8% of California Resources shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 40.7% of Barnwell Industries shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.0% of California Resources shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 17.6% of Barnwell Industries shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares California Resources and Barnwell Industries’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
California Resources	11.34%	11.00%	5.91%
Barnwell Industries	-13.29%	-18.20%	-9.39%

Dividends

California Resources pays an annual dividend of $1.24 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.3%. Barnwell Industries pays an annual dividend of $0.01 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.4%. California Resources pays out 35.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Barnwell Industries pays out -3.0% 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.

Summary

California Resources beats Barnwell Industries on 13 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About California Resources

California Resources Corporation operates as an independent oil and natural gas exploration and production, and carbon management company in the United States. The company explores, produces, and markets crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids for marketers, California refineries, and other purchasers that have access to transportation and storage facilities. It also engages in the generation and sale of electricity to the wholesale power market and utility sector; and developing various carbon capture and storage projects in California. The company was incorporated in 2014 and is based in Long Beach, California.

About Barnwell Industries

Barnwell Industries, Inc. acquires, develops, produces, and sells oil and natural gas in Canada. The company operates through three segments: Oil and Natural Gas, Land Investment, and Contract Drilling. It also acquires and develops crude oil and natural gas assets in the province of Alberta, as well as invests in land interests in Hawaii. In addition, the company owns and operates threes water well drilling rigs, two pump rigs, and other ancillary drilling and pump equipment; and drills water and water monitoring wells of varying depths. Further, it installs and repairs water pumping systems; and distributes trillium flow technologies. Barnwell Industries, Inc. was incorporated in 1956 and is based in Honolulu, Hawaii.