Reviewing Marine Petroleum Trust (NASDAQ:MARPS) and Clean Energy Fuels (NASDAQ:CLNE)

Marine Petroleum Trust (NASDAQ:MARPS) and Clean Energy Fuels (NASDAQ:CLNE) are both small-cap energy companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, dividends, risk, profitability, institutional ownership, valuation and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Marine Petroleum Trust and Clean Energy Fuels, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Marine Petroleum Trust	0	1	0	0	2.00
Clean Energy Fuels	1	2	0	1	2.25

Clean Energy Fuels has a consensus target price of $2.38, suggesting a potential upside of 51.80%. Given Clean Energy Fuels’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Clean Energy Fuels is more favorable than Marine Petroleum Trust.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Marine Petroleum Trust and Clean Energy Fuels”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Marine Petroleum Trust	$990,000.00	8.48	$660,000.00	$0.34	12.35
Clean Energy Fuels	$424.83 million	0.81	-$222.02 million	($0.44)	-3.57

Marine Petroleum Trust has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Clean Energy Fuels. Clean Energy Fuels is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Marine Petroleum Trust, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Risk & Volatility

Marine Petroleum Trust has a beta of 0.37, indicating that its share price is 63% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Clean Energy Fuels has a beta of 1.89, indicating that its share price is 89% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

1.8% of Marine Petroleum Trust shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 49.9% of Clean Energy Fuels shares are owned by institutional investors. 4.1% of Clean Energy Fuels shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Marine Petroleum Trust and Clean Energy Fuels’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Marine Petroleum Trust	67.00%	69.15%	69.15%
Clean Energy Fuels	-21.27%	-16.52%	-8.87%

About Marine Petroleum Trust

Marine Petroleum Trust, together with its subsidiary, Marine Petroleum Corporation, operates as a royalty trust in the United States. It has overriding royalty interest in oil and natural gas leases in the Central and Western areas of the Gulf of Mexico off the coasts of Louisiana and Texas. Marine Petroleum Trust was founded in 1956 and is based in Dallas, Texas.

About Clean Energy Fuels

Clean Energy Fuels Corp. provides natural gas as alternative fuels for vehicle fleets and related fueling solutions in the United States and Canada. It supplies renewable natural gas (RNG), compressed natural gas (CNG), and liquefied natural gas (LNG) for medium and heavy-duty vehicles; and offers operation and maintenance services for public and private vehicle fleet customer stations. The company also designs, builds, operates, and maintains vehicle fueling stations; and sells and services compressors and other equipment that are used in RNG production and fueling stations. In addition, it transports and sells CNG, RNG, and LNG through virtual natural gas pipelines and interconnects; sells U.S. federal, state, and local government credits, such as RNG as a vehicle fuel, including Renewable Identification Numbers and Low Carbon Fuel Standards credits; and obtains federal, state, and local credits, grants, and incentives. Further, the company focuses on developing, owning, and operating dairy and other livestock waste RNG projects. It serves heavy-duty trucking, airports, refuse, public transit, industrial, and institutional energy users, as well as government fleets. Clean Energy Fuels Corp. was incorporated in 2001 and is headquartered in Newport Beach, California.