Financial Survey: Seadrill (NYSE:SDRL) vs. Recon Technology (NASDAQ:RCON)

Recon Technology (NASDAQ:RCON) and Seadrill (NYSE:SDRL) are both energy companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, analyst recommendations, risk, institutional ownership, earnings, valuation and profitability.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent recommendations for Recon Technology and Seadrill, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Recon Technology	1	0	0	0	1.00
Seadrill	1	2	3	3	2.89

Seadrill has a consensus target price of $55.00, suggesting a potential upside of 17.57%. Given Seadrill’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Seadrill is more favorable than Recon Technology.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

9.5% of Recon Technology shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 95.7% of Seadrill shares are held by institutional investors. 28.0% of Recon Technology shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.5% of Seadrill shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Volatility and Risk

Recon Technology has a beta of 1.53, meaning that its stock price is 53% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Seadrill has a beta of 1.21, meaning that its stock price is 21% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Recon Technology and Seadrill’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Recon Technology	N/A	N/A	N/A
Seadrill	0.07%	0.64%	0.46%

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Recon Technology and Seadrill”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Recon Technology	$9.25 million	0.22	-$5.95 million	N/A	N/A
Seadrill	$1.44 billion	2.04	-$77.00 million	$0.03	1,559.33

Recon Technology has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Seadrill.

Summary

Seadrill beats Recon Technology on 10 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Recon Technology

Recon Technology, Ltd. provides hardware, software, and on-site services to companies in the petroleum mining and extraction industry in the People’s Republic of China. The company offers equipment, tools, and other components and parts related to oilfield production and other energy industries; and develops and sells industrial automation control and information solutions. It also provides equipment for oil and gas production and transportation, including heating furnaces and burner, as well as improvement techniques comprising packers of fracturing; production packers; sand prevention in oil and water wells; water locating and plugging techniques; fissure shaper; fracture acidizing techniques; and electronic broken-down services to resolve block-up and freezing problems. In addition, the company offers automation systems and services, including pumping unit controller that monitors the pumping units and collects data; RTU to monitor natural gas wells and collect gas well pressure data; wireless dynamometers and wireless pressure gauges; electric multi-way valves for oilfield metering station flow control; and natural gas flow computer systems. Further, it provides Recon SCADA oilfield monitor and data acquisition system for supervision and data collection; EPC service of pipeline SCADA system for pipeline monitoring and data acquisition; EPC service of oil and gas wells SCADA system for monitoring and data acquisition of oil wells and natural gas wells; EPC service of oilfield video surveillance and control system to control the oil and gas wellhead and measurement station areas; and technique service for digital oilfield transformation. Additionally, the company offers oilfield waste water treatment solutions and related chemicals; oily sludge disposal solutions; and gas station operation and management solution. Recon Technology, Ltd. was incorporated in 2007 and is headquartered in Beijing, the People’s Republic of China.

About Seadrill

Seadrill Ltd. engages in the provision of offshore drilling services to the oil and gas industry. It operates through the following segments: Floaters, Jack-up rigs, and Other. The Floaters segment encompasses drilling, completion, and maintenance of offshore exploration and production wells. the Jack-up Rigs segment includes drilling contracts relate to jack-up rigs for operations in harsh and benign environments in shallow water. The Other segment represents management services to third parties and related parties. The company was founded on May 10, 2005 and is headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda.