Reviewing Nordic American Tankers (NYSE:NAT) and Touchstone Exploration (OTCMKTS:PBEGF)

Nordic American Tankers (NYSE:NAT) and Touchstone Exploration (OTCMKTS:PBEGF) are both energy companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, analyst recommendations, valuation, institutional ownership, risk, earnings and dividends.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Nordic American Tankers and Touchstone Exploration, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Nordic American Tankers	1	2	0	0	1.67
Touchstone Exploration	0	0	0	0	0.00

Nordic American Tankers presently has a consensus target price of $4.00, suggesting a potential downside of 37.39%. Given Nordic American Tankers’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Nordic American Tankers is more favorable than Touchstone Exploration.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Nordic American Tankers and Touchstone Exploration”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Nordic American Tankers	$331.26 million	4.08	$12.27 million	$0.27	23.66
Touchstone Exploration	N/A	N/A	N/A	($0.85)	-0.11

Nordic American Tankers has higher revenue and earnings than Touchstone Exploration. Touchstone Exploration is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Nordic American Tankers, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Nordic American Tankers and Touchstone Exploration’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Nordic American Tankers	24.19%	9.16%	4.59%
Touchstone Exploration	N/A	N/A	N/A

Institutional & Insider Ownership

44.3% of Nordic American Tankers shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 9.2% of Touchstone Exploration shares are held by institutional investors. 2.9% of Nordic American Tankers shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Nordic American Tankers beats Touchstone Exploration on 10 of the 10 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Nordic American Tankers

Nordic American Tankers Limited, a tanker company, acquires and charters double-hull tankers in Bermuda and internationally. It operates a fleet of 20 Suezmax crude oil tankers. The company was incorporated in 1995 and is headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda.

About Touchstone Exploration

Touchstone Exploration Inc. engages in the exploration, development, acquisition, production, and sale of petroleum and natural gas properties in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. Its primary exploration focus is the Ortoire exploration block. The company was formerly known as Petrobank Energy and Resources Ltd. and changed its name to Touchstone Exploration Inc. in May 2014. Touchstone Exploration Inc. is headquartered in Calgary, Canada.