Reviewing Solesence (NASDAQ:SLSN) and Edgewell Personal Care (NYSE:EPC)

Solesence (NASDAQ:SLSN) and Edgewell Personal Care (NYSE:EPC) are both small-cap consumer staples companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, risk, analyst recommendations, profitability, valuation, dividends and institutional ownership.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings for Solesence and Edgewell Personal Care, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Solesence	1	0	0	0	1.00
Edgewell Personal Care	1	4	3	0	2.25

Edgewell Personal Care has a consensus price target of $31.83, suggesting a potential upside of 17.62%. Given Edgewell Personal Care’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Edgewell Personal Care is more favorable than Solesence.

Profitability

This table compares Solesence and Edgewell Personal Care’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Solesence	-3.40%	-11.58%	-3.79%
Edgewell Personal Care	-4.55%	5.76%	2.35%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

70.2% of Solesence shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 91.9% of Edgewell Personal Care shares are owned by institutional investors. 4.8% of Solesence shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 3.0% of Edgewell Personal Care shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Solesence and Edgewell Personal Care”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Solesence	$62.06 million	0.93	$1.79 million	($0.03)	-27.33
Edgewell Personal Care	$2.22 billion	0.56	$25.40 million	($2.00)	-13.53

Edgewell Personal Care has higher revenue and earnings than Solesence. Solesence is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Edgewell Personal Care, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility and Risk

Solesence has a beta of 1.37, meaning that its stock price is 37% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Edgewell Personal Care has a beta of 0.34, meaning that its stock price is 66% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Edgewell Personal Care beats Solesence on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Solesence

Nanophase Technologies Corporation provides engineered materials, formulation development, and commercial manufacturing with an integrated family of technologies in the United States. It offers surface engineered zinc oxide and titanium dioxide for sunscreens and personal care products; fully formulated cosmetics, sun care, and skin care under the Solésence brand name; and advanced materials products, such as architectural coatings, industrial coatings, abrasion-resistant additives, plastics additives, medical diagnostics, and various surface finishing technologies applications. The company was incorporated in 1989 and is headquartered in Romeoville, Illinois.

About Edgewell Personal Care

Edgewell Personal Care Company is a manufacturer and marketer of personal care products in the wet shave, sun and skin care, feminine care and infant care categories. As of September 30, 2016, the Company had a portfolio of over 25 brands. It manages its business in four segments: Wet Shave, Sun and Skin Care, Feminine Care and All Other. Its Wet shave products are sold under the Schick, Wilkinson Sword, Edge, Skintimate, Shave Guard and Personna brand names. Its Sun and Skin Care products are sold under the Banana Boat, Hawaiian Tropic, Wet Ones and Playtex brand names and offers Wet Ones, portable hand wipes category, and Playtex household gloves, the branded household glove in the United States. Its Feminine Care segment markets its products under the Playtex, Stayfree, Carefree and o.b. brands and markets pads and liners. Its All Other segment includes infant care, pet care and miscellaneous other products.