Contrasting Freightcar America (RAIL) and Its Peers

Freightcar America (NASDAQ:RAIL) is one of 436 publicly-traded companies in the “Machinery” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its rivals? We will compare Freightcar America to related companies based on the strength of its institutional ownership, valuation, analyst recommendations, profitability, earnings, risk and dividends.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Freightcar America and its rivals revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Freightcar America	$500.99 million	$38.10 million	-17.16
Freightcar America Competitors	$4.78 billion	$361.11 million	6.35

Freightcar America’s rivals have higher revenue and earnings than Freightcar America. Freightcar America is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its rivals, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Volatility & Risk

Freightcar America has a beta of 1.58, indicating that its stock price is 58% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Freightcar America’s rivals have a beta of 5.12, indicating that their average stock price is 412% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and price targets for Freightcar America and its rivals, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Freightcar America	2	0	0	0	1.00
Freightcar America Competitors	4214	14730	18258	809	2.41

As a group, “Machinery” companies have a potential upside of 30.43%. Given Freightcar America’s rivals stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Freightcar America has less favorable growth aspects than its rivals.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

32.0% of Freightcar America shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 51.8% of shares of all “Machinery” companies are owned by institutional investors. 29.2% of Freightcar America shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 14.1% of shares of all “Machinery” companies are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Freightcar America and its rivals’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Freightcar America	-1.32%	-15.23%	-2.54%
Freightcar America Competitors	-1,035.51%	-36.25%	-0.27%

Summary

Freightcar America rivals beat Freightcar America on 10 of the 13 factors compared.

About Freightcar America

FreightCar America, Inc. designs, manufactures and sells freight railcars and railcar parts. Its products include freight cars for transporting bulk commodities and other goods, with offerings that include hopper cars, gondolas and intermodal railcars. The company also provides railcar repair and refurbishment services, supporting customers throughout the life of their equipment. Its manufacturing and service operations serve the North American rail industry, with facilities in the United States and Mexico.