Financial Survey: Nucor (NYSE:NUE) versus Endeavour Silver (NYSE:EXK)

Nucor (NYSE:NUE) and Endeavour Silver (NYSE:EXK) are both materials companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their risk, institutional ownership, profitability, earnings, valuation, dividends and analyst recommendations.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

76.5% of Nucor shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 20.1% of Endeavour Silver shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.6% of Nucor shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.8% of Endeavour Silver shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current recommendations for Nucor and Endeavour Silver, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Nucor	0	4	13	0	2.76
Endeavour Silver	0	3	5	1	2.78

Nucor presently has a consensus price target of $276.07, indicating a potential upside of 12.85%. Endeavour Silver has a consensus price target of $14.50, indicating a potential upside of 61.74%. Given Endeavour Silver’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Endeavour Silver is more favorable than Nucor.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Nucor and Endeavour Silver”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Nucor	$32.49 billion	1.71	$1.74 billion	$12.54	19.51
Endeavour Silver	$432.80 million	6.13	-$119.10 million	$0.21	42.69

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

Profitability

This table compares Nucor and Endeavour Silver’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Nucor	7.99%	12.73%	8.03%
Endeavour Silver	9.30%	17.46%	8.93%

Volatility & Risk

Nucor has a beta of 1.87, indicating that its share price is 87% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Endeavour Silver has a beta of 1.43, indicating that its share price is 43% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Endeavour Silver beats Nucor on 9 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Nucor

Nucor Corporation engages in manufacture and sale of steel and steel products. It operates in three segments: steel mills, steel products, and raw materials. The Steel Mills segment produces hot-rolled, cold-rolled, and galvanized sheet steel products; plate steel products; wide-flange beams, beam blanks, and H-piling and sheet piling structural steel products; bar steel products, such as blooms, billets, concrete reinforcing and merchant bars, and engineered special bar quality products; and engages in the steel trading and rebar distribution businesses. This segment sells its products to steel service centers, fabricators, and manufacturers in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The Steel Products segment offers steel joists and joist girders, steel decks, and galvanized torque tubes for used in solar arrays, hollow structural section steel tubing, electrical conduit, fabricated concrete reinforcing steel, cold finished steel, steel fasteners, steel grating and expanded metal, wire and wire mesh, metal building systems, insulated metal panels, steel racking, overhead doors, and utility towers and structures for communications and energy transmission. This segment is also involved in the piling distribution business. The Raw Materials segment produces direct reduced iron (DRI); brokers ferrous and nonferrous metals, pig iron, hot briquetted iron, and DRI; supplies ferro-alloys; processes ferrous and nonferrous scrap metal; and engages in the natural gas production and industrial gas business. This segment sells its ferrous scrap to electric arc furnace steel mills and foundries for manufacturing process; and nonferrous scrap metal to aluminum can producers, secondary aluminum smelters, steel mills and other processors, and consumers of various nonferrous metals. It markets its products through in-house sales force; and internal distribution and trading companies. Nucor Corporation was founded in 1905 and is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina.

About Endeavour Silver

Endeavour Silver Corp., a silver mining company, engages in the acquisition, exploration, development, extraction, processing, refining, and reclamation of mineral properties in Chile and the United States. It explores for gold and silver deposits, and precious metals. The company was formerly known as Endeavour Gold Corp. and changed its name to Endeavour Silver Corp. in September 2004. Endeavour Silver Corp. was incorporated in 1981 and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.