Comparing Nucor (NUE) and Its Peers

Nucor (NYSE:NUE) is one of 1,984 publicly-traded companies in the “Metals & Mining” industry, but how does it contrast to its peers? We will compare Nucor to similar businesses based on the strength of its profitability, earnings, institutional ownership, valuation, risk, analyst recommendations and dividends.

Volatility and Risk

Nucor has a beta of 1.81, indicating that its stock price is 81% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Nucor’s peers have a beta of 0.96, indicating that their average stock price is 4% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current recommendations for Nucor and its peers, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Nucor	0	3	14	1	2.89
Nucor Competitors	6406	22609	32308	1801	2.47

Nucor currently has a consensus price target of $287.38, indicating a potential upside of 17.42%. As a group, “Metals & Mining” companies have a potential upside of 25.11%. Given Nucor’s peers higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Nucor has less favorable growth aspects than its peers.

Profitability

This table compares Nucor and its peers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Nucor	9.26%	15.53%	9.78%
Nucor Competitors	-1,164,884,689,320,590,400.00%	-52.92%	-2.03%

Dividends

Nucor pays an annual dividend of $2.24 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.9%. Nucor pays out 14.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, “Metals & Mining” companies pay a dividend yield of 10.1% and pay out 10.8% of their earnings in the form of a dividend. Nucor has raised its dividend for 52 consecutive years. Nucor lags its peers as a dividend stock, given its lower dividend yield and higher payout ratio.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Nucor and its peers gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Nucor	$32.49 billion	$1.74 billion	15.58
Nucor Competitors	$5.23 billion	$278.94 million	-26.24

Nucor has higher revenue and earnings than its peers. Nucor is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

76.5% of Nucor shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 15.9% of shares of all “Metals & Mining” companies are owned by institutional investors. 0.6% of Nucor shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 17.7% of shares of all “Metals & Mining” companies are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

Nucor beats its peers on 11 of the 15 factors compared.

Nucor Company Profile

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.