Financial Analysis: Liquidity Services (NASDAQ:LQDT) vs. Clean Harbors (NYSE:CLH)

Liquidity Services (NASDAQ:LQDT) and Clean Harbors (NYSE:CLH) are both industrials companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, institutional ownership, valuation, risk, analyst recommendations, earnings and profitability.

Volatility and Risk

Liquidity Services has a beta of 1.1, meaning that its share price is 10% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Clean Harbors has a beta of 0.86, meaning that its share price is 14% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Liquidity Services and Clean Harbors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Liquidity Services	6.79%	17.60%	9.86%
Clean Harbors	7.03%	15.65%	5.75%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

71.2% of Liquidity Services shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 90.4% of Clean Harbors shares are held by institutional investors. 28.1% of Liquidity Services shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 5.0% of Clean Harbors shares are held by company 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.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings for Liquidity Services and Clean Harbors, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Liquidity Services	0	1	2	0	2.67
Clean Harbors	0	5	10	2	2.82

Liquidity Services presently has a consensus price target of $50.00, indicating a potential upside of 15.96%. Clean Harbors has a consensus price target of $354.57, indicating a potential upside of 14.72%. Given Liquidity Services’ higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Liquidity Services is more favorable than Clean Harbors.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Liquidity Services and Clean Harbors”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Liquidity Services	$476.67 million	2.83	$28.09 million	$1.02	42.27
Clean Harbors	$6.03 billion	2.71	$390.97 million	$8.24	37.51

Clean Harbors has higher revenue and earnings than Liquidity Services. Clean Harbors is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Liquidity Services, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Clean Harbors beats Liquidity Services on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Liquidity Services

Liquidity Services, Inc. provides e-commerce marketplaces, self-directed auction listing tools, and value-added services in the United States and internationally. The company operates through four segments: GovDeals, Retail Supply Chain Group (RSCG), Capital Assets Group (CAG), and Machinio. Its marketplaces include liquidation.com that enable corporations to sell surplus and salvage consumer goods and retail capital assets; GovDeals marketplace, which provides self-directed service solutions in which sellers list their own assets that enables local and state government entities, and commercial businesses located in the United States and Canada to sell surplus and salvage assets; and AllSurplus, a centralized marketplace that connects global buyer base with assets from across the network of marketplaces in a single destination. The company also offers a suite of services, including surplus management, asset valuation, asset sales, marketing, returns management, asset recovery, and ecommerce services. In addition, it operates a global search engine platform for listing used equipment for sale in the construction, machine tool, transportation, printing, and agriculture sectors. The company offers products from industry verticals, such as consumer electronics, general merchandise, apparel, scientific equipment, aerospace parts and equipment, technology hardware, real estate, energy equipment, industrial capital assets, heavy equipment, fleet and transportation equipment, and specialty equipment. The company was incorporated in 1999 and is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland.

About Clean Harbors

Clean Harbors, Inc. provides environmental and industrial services in the United States and internationally. The company operates through two segments, Environmental Services and Safety-Kleen Sustainability Solutions. The Environmental Services segment collects, transports, treats, and disposes hazardous and non-hazardous waste, such as resource recovery, physical treatment, fuel blending, incineration, landfill disposal, wastewater treatment, lab chemicals disposal, and explosives management services; and offers CleanPack services, including collection, identification, categorization, specialized packaging, transportation, and disposal of laboratory chemicals and household hazardous waste. This segment also provides industrial maintenance and specialty industrial services; and utilizes specialty equipment and resources that performs field services. The Safety-Kleen Sustainability Solutions segment provides pickup and transportation services for hazardous and non-hazardous containerized waste for recycling or disposal; machine cleaning and maintenance, and disposal and replenishment of clean solvent or aqueous fluids; and vacuum services to remove solids, residual oily water, and sludge and other fluids from customers' oil/water separators, sumps, and collection tanks, as well as removes and collects waste fluids found at large and small industrial locations, including metal fabricators, auto maintenance providers, and general manufacturers. This segment also manufactures, formulates, packages, distributes, and markets lubricants and other automotive products. Clean Harbors, Inc. was incorporated in 1980 and is headquartered in Norwell, Massachusetts.