Financial Contrast: New Gold (NYSE:NGD) and Searchlight Minerals (OTCMKTS:SRCH)

Searchlight Minerals (OTCMKTS:SRCH) and New Gold (NYSE:NGD) are both basic materials companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their risk, dividends, earnings, profitability, valuation, institutional ownership and analyst recommendations.

Profitability

This table compares Searchlight Minerals and New Gold’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Searchlight Minerals	N/A	N/A	N/A
New Gold	11.10%	13.70%	6.31%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for Searchlight Minerals and New Gold, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Searchlight Minerals	0	0	0	0	0.00
New Gold	0	1	5	2	3.13

New Gold has a consensus price target of $3.70, suggesting a potential upside of 22.92%. Given New Gold’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe New Gold is more favorable than Searchlight Minerals.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

42.8% of New Gold shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.2% of New Gold shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Searchlight Minerals and New Gold”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Searchlight Minerals	N/A	N/A	-$2.28 million	N/A	N/A
New Gold	$924.50 million	2.58	-$64.50 million	$0.13	23.15

Searchlight Minerals has higher earnings, but lower revenue than New Gold.

Volatility & Risk

Searchlight Minerals has a beta of -0.05, suggesting that its share price is 105% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, New Gold has a beta of 0.93, suggesting that its share price is 7% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

New Gold beats Searchlight Minerals on 11 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Searchlight Minerals

Searchlight Minerals Corp., an exploration stage company, engages in a slag reprocessing project; and the acquisition and exploration of mineral properties in the United States. It holds interests in the Clarkdale slag project, located in Clarkdale, Arizona, which is a reclamation project to recover precious and base metals from the reprocessing of slag produced from the smelting of copper ore mined at the United Verde Copper Mine in Jerome, Arizona. The company was formerly known as Phage Genomics, Inc and changed its name to Searchlight Minerals Corp. in June 2005. Searchlight Minerals Corp. was founded in 1999 and is based in Henderson, Nevada.

About New Gold

New Gold Inc., an intermediate gold mining company, develops and operates of mineral properties in Canada. It primarily explores for gold, silver, and copper deposits. The company’s principal operating properties include 100% interest in the Rainy River mine located in Northwestern Ontario, Canada; and New Afton project situated in South-Central British Columbia. New Gold Inc. is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.