Head to Head Review: Trinseo (NYSE:TSE) & American Vanguard (NYSE:AVD)

Trinseo (NYSE:TSE) and American Vanguard (NYSE:AVD) are both small-cap basic materials companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, valuation, earnings, profitability, dividends, risk and institutional ownership.

Risk & Volatility

Trinseo has a beta of 1.45, indicating that its share price is 45% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, American Vanguard has a beta of 1.22, indicating that its share price is 22% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Trinseo and American Vanguard’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Trinseo	-13.15%	N/A	-11.72%
American Vanguard	-21.15%	-23.15%	-8.20%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Trinseo and American Vanguard”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Trinseo	$3.51 billion	0.01	-$348.50 million	($11.55)	-0.06
American Vanguard	$547.31 million	0.20	-$126.34 million	($3.98)	-0.98

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

Institutional and Insider Ownership

82.7% of Trinseo shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 79.0% of American Vanguard shares are owned by institutional investors. 4.5% of Trinseo shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 7.6% of American Vanguard shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Trinseo and American Vanguard, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Trinseo	1	2	0	0	1.67
American Vanguard	1	0	1	0	2.00

Trinseo currently has a consensus price target of $1.00, suggesting a potential upside of 54.80%. American Vanguard has a consensus price target of $12.00, suggesting a potential upside of 208.01%. Given American Vanguard’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe American Vanguard is more favorable than Trinseo.

Summary

American Vanguard beats Trinseo on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Trinseo

Trinseo PLC operates as a specialty material solutions provider in the United States, Europe, the Asia-Pacific, and internationally. It operates through five segments: Engineered Materials, Latex Binders, Plastics Solutions, Polystyrene, and Americas Styrenics. The Engineered Materials segment offers rigid thermoplastic compounds and blends, soft thermoplastic, continuous cast, cell cast, activated methyl methacrylates (MMA), PMMA resins, and extruded PMMA sheets and resins for consumer electronics, medical, footwear, automotive, and building and construction applications under the EMERGE, CALIBRE, PLEXIGLAS, ALTUGLAS, ACRYSPA, AVONITE, STUDIO, MEGOL, APILON, APIGO, and APINAT brands. The Latex Binders segment provides styrene-butadiene latex, and other latex polymers and binders primarily for coated paper and packaging board, carpet, and artificial turf backings, as well as the adhesive, building and construction, and technical textile paper market. The Plastics Solutions segment offers acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene, styrene-acrylonitrile, polycarbonate, and compounds and blends for automotive and other applications under the MAGNUM brand. The Polystyrene segment provides general purpose polystyrenes and high impact polystyrene for use in appliances, food packaging and food service disposables, consumer electronics, and building and construction materials under the STYRON brand. The Americas Styrenics segment provides styrene and polystyrene for appliances, food packaging, food service disposables, consumer electronics, and building and construction materials applications. Trinseo PLC was incorporated in 2015 and is headquartered in Wayne, Pennsylvania.

About American Vanguard

American Vanguard Corporation, through its subsidiaries, develops, manufactures, and markets specialty chemicals for agricultural, commercial, and consumer uses in the United States and internationally. It manufactures and formulates chemicals, including insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, soil health, plant nutrition, molluscicides, growth regulators, soil fumigants, and biorationals in liquid, powder, and granular forms for crops, turf and ornamental plants, and human and animal health protection. The company also markets, sells, and distributes end-use chemical and biological products for crop applications; and distributes chemicals for turf and ornamental markets. It distributes its products through national distribution companies, and buying groups or co-operatives; and through sales offices, sales force executives, sales agents, and wholly owned distributors. American Vanguard Corporation was incorporated in 1969 and is headquartered in Newport Beach, California.