Hawkins (NASDAQ:HWKN – Get Free Report) and BioLargo (NASDAQ:BLGO – Get Free Report) are both basic materials companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, valuation, dividends, profitability, risk, analyst recommendations and institutional ownership.
Institutional and Insider Ownership
69.7% of Hawkins shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 0.0% of BioLargo shares are held by institutional investors. 3.8% of Hawkins shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 20.3% of BioLargo shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
Analyst Ratings
This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for Hawkins and BioLargo, as reported by MarketBeat.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| Hawkins | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2.00 |
| BioLargo | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
Valuation and Earnings
This table compares Hawkins and BioLargo”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| Hawkins | $934.42 million | 2.77 | $75.36 million | $3.91 | 31.61 |
| BioLargo | $12.23 million | 4.49 | -$3.50 million | ($0.02) | -9.12 |
Hawkins has higher revenue and earnings than BioLargo. BioLargo is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Hawkins, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Risk and Volatility
Hawkins has a beta of 0.77, meaning that its stock price is 23% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, BioLargo has a beta of 0.2, meaning that its stock price is 80% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Profitability
This table compares Hawkins and BioLargo’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| Hawkins | 8.74% | 19.64% | 12.13% |
| BioLargo | -16.53% | -58.35% | -32.12% |
Summary
Hawkins beats BioLargo on 11 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.
About Hawkins
Hawkins, Inc. operates as a specialty chemical and ingredients company in the United States. It operates through three segments: Industrial, Water Treatment, and Health and Nutrition. The Industrial segment offers industrial chemicals, products, and services to agriculture, chemical processing, electronics, energy, food, pharmaceutical, and plating industries. This segment manufactures sodium hypochlorite and agricultural products, as well as various food-grade and pharmaceutical products, such as liquid phosphates, lactates, other blended products, and agricultural products; and receives, stores, and distributes various chemicals comprising liquid caustic soda, sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, urea, phosphoric acid, aqua ammonia, and potassium hydroxide. It also repackages water treatment chemicals and bulk industrial chemicals; and performs custom blending of chemicals. The Water Treatment segment provides chemicals, products, equipment, services, and solutions for potable water, municipal and industrial wastewater, industrial process water, non-residential swimming pool water, and agriculture water. The Health and Nutrition segment offers ingredient distribution, processing, and formulation solutions to manufacturers of nutraceutical, functional food and beverage, personal care, dietary supplement and other nutritional food, and health and wellness products. Its products portfolio includes minerals, vitamins and amino acids, excipients, joint products, botanicals and herbs, sweeteners, and enzymes. Hawkins, Inc. was founded in 1938 and is headquartered in Roseville, Minnesota.
About BioLargo
BioLargo, Inc. invents, develops, and commercializes various platform technologies. Its technologies solve challenging environmental problems comprising per – and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) water contamination, advanced water and wastewater treatment, industrial odor and volatile organic compounds control, air quality control, infection control, and myriad environmental remediation. The company provides full-service environmental engineering services. BioLargo, Inc. was incorporated in 1991 and is based in Westminster, California.
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