Financial Review: Smart Sand (NASDAQ:SND) and ProPetro (NYSE:PUMP)

ProPetro (NYSE:PUMP) and Smart Sand (NASDAQ:SND) are both small-cap energy companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, analyst recommendations, earnings, valuation, institutional ownership, dividends and profitability.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

84.7% of ProPetro shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 35.2% of Smart Sand shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.6% of ProPetro shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 32.3% of Smart Sand shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares ProPetro and Smart Sand”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
ProPetro	$1.27 billion	1.16	$820,000.00	$0.01	1,210.50
Smart Sand	$330.15 million	0.68	$1.35 million	$0.09	57.67

Smart Sand has lower revenue, but higher earnings than ProPetro. Smart Sand is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than ProPetro, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility & Risk

ProPetro has a beta of 0.7, indicating that its stock price is 30% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Smart Sand has a beta of 0.27, indicating that its stock price is 73% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for ProPetro and Smart Sand, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
ProPetro	1	3	4	0	2.38
Smart Sand	0	1	0	0	2.00

ProPetro presently has a consensus target price of $12.83, indicating a potential upside of 6.02%. Given ProPetro’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities analysts clearly believe ProPetro is more favorable than Smart Sand.

Profitability

This table compares ProPetro and Smart Sand’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
ProPetro	0.06%	0.10%	0.07%
Smart Sand	0.41%	-8.67%	-6.01%

Summary

ProPetro beats Smart Sand on 10 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About ProPetro

ProPetro Holding Corp. operates as an integrated oilfield services company. The company provides hydraulic fracturing, wireline, cementing, and other complementary oilfield completion services to upstream oil and gas companies in the Permian Basin. ProPetro Holding Corp. was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Midland, Texas.

About Smart Sand

Smart Sand, Inc., an integrated frac and industrial sand supply and services company, engages in the excavation, processing, and sale of sands or proppant for use in hydraulic fracturing operations in the oil and gas industry in the United States. It also provides proppant logistics services; and wellsite storage solutions through SmartSystems products and services. The company sells its products primarily to oil and natural gas exploration and production companies, oilfield service companies, and industrial manufacturers. Smart Sand, Inc. was incorporated in 2011 and is headquartered in Spring, Texas.