Critical Survey: FMC (NYSE:FMC) & Standard Lithium (NYSE:SLI)

FMC (NYSE:FMC) and Standard Lithium (NYSE:SLI) are both consumer staples companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, valuation, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, earnings, profitability and dividends.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent recommendations for FMC and Standard Lithium, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
FMC	1	9	4	1	2.33
Standard Lithium	0	0	2	0	3.00

FMC presently has a consensus price target of $68.00, indicating a potential upside of 31.05%. Standard Lithium has a consensus price target of $3.95, indicating a potential upside of 170.55%. Given Standard Lithium’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Standard Lithium is more favorable than FMC.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

91.9% of FMC shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 16.8% of Standard Lithium shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.9% of FMC shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 3.7% of Standard Lithium shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares FMC and Standard Lithium”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
FMC	$4.17 billion	1.55	$1.32 billion	$11.62	4.47
Standard Lithium	N/A	N/A	$108.82 million	$0.59	2.47

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

Risk and Volatility

FMC has a beta of 0.8, indicating that its stock price is 20% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Standard Lithium has a beta of 1.63, indicating that its stock price is 63% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares FMC and Standard Lithium’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
FMC	34.93%	7.68%	2.86%
Standard Lithium	N/A	-11.52%	-10.25%

Summary

FMC beats Standard Lithium on 10 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About FMC

FMC Corporation, an agricultural sciences company, provides crop protection, plant health, and professional pest and turf management products. It develops, markets, and sells crop protection chemicals that includes insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides; and biologicals, crop nutrition, and seed treatment products, which are used in agriculture to enhance crop yield and quality by controlling a range of insects, weeds, and diseases, as well as in non-agricultural markets for pest control. The company markets its products through its own sales organization and through alliance partners, independent distributors, and sales representatives. It operates in North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. The company was founded in 1883 and is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

About Standard Lithium

Standard Lithium Ltd. explores for, develops, and processes lithium brine properties in the United States. Its flagship project is the Lanxess project with area of approximately 150,000 acres located in southern Arkansas. The company was formerly known as Patriot Petroleum Corp. and changed its name to Standard Lithium Ltd. in December 2016. Standard Lithium Ltd. was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.