U-Haul (NYSE:UHAL) & Matson (NYSE:MATX) Financial Review

U-Haul (NYSE:UHAL) and Matson (NYSE:MATX) are both transportation companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, risk, valuation, earnings, profitability, institutional ownership and dividends.

Volatility & Risk

U-Haul has a beta of 1.13, meaning that its stock price is 13% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Matson has a beta of 1.29, meaning that its stock price is 29% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares U-Haul and Matson’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
U-Haul	1.38%	1.06%	0.39%
Matson	12.92%	15.90%	9.38%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for U-Haul and Matson, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
U-Haul	1	0	0	1	2.50
Matson	0	3	3	0	2.50

U-Haul currently has a consensus target price of $80.00, indicating a potential upside of 44.96%. Matson has a consensus target price of $181.25, indicating a potential downside of 2.61%. Given U-Haul’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe U-Haul is more favorable than Matson.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares U-Haul and Matson”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
U-Haul	$6.04 billion	1.79	$83.13 million	$0.24	229.95
Matson	$3.34 billion	1.68	$444.80 million	$13.61	13.67

Matson has lower revenue, but higher earnings than U-Haul. Matson is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than U-Haul, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

3.6% of U-Haul shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 84.8% of Matson shares are held by institutional investors. 43.6% of U-Haul shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 2.5% of Matson shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

Matson beats U-Haul on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About U-Haul

AMERCO operates as a do-it-yourself moving and storage operator for household and commercial goods in the United States and Canada. The company’s Moving and Storage segment rents trucks, trailers, portable moving and storage units, specialty rental items, and self-storage spaces primarily to the household movers; and sells moving supplies, towing accessories, and propane. It also provides uhaul.com, an online marketplace that connects consumers to independent Moving Help service providers and independent self-storage affiliates; auto transport and tow dolly options to transport vehicles; and specialty boxes for dishes, computers, and sensitive electronic equipment, as well as tapes, security locks, and packing supplies. This segment rents its products and services through a network of approximately 2,065 company operated retail moving stores and 20,100 independent U-Haul dealers. As of March 31, 2020, it had a rental fleet of approximately 176,000 trucks, 127,000 trailers, and 41,000 towing devices; and 1,745 self-storage locations with approximately 774,000 rentable storage units. The company’s Property and Casualty Insurance segment offers loss adjusting and claims handling services. It also provides moving and storage protection packages, such as Safemove and Safetow packages, which offer moving and towing customers with a damage waiver, cargo protection, and medical and life insurance coverage; Safestor that protects storage customers from loss on their goods in storage; Safestor Mobile, which protects customers stored belongings; and Safemove Plus, which provides rental customers with a layer of primary liability protection. The company’s Life Insurance segment provides life and health insurance products primarily to the senior market through the direct writing and reinsuring of life insurance, medicare supplement, and annuity policies. AMERCO was founded in 1945 and is based in Reno, Nevada.

About Matson

Matson, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the provision of ocean transportation and logistics services. It operates through two segments, Ocean Transportation and Logistics. The Ocean Transportation segment offers ocean freight transportation services to the domestic non-contiguous economies of Hawaii, Japan, Alaska, and Guam, as well as to other island economies in Micronesia. It primarily transports dry containers of mixed commodities, refrigerated commodities, food products, beverages, building materials, automobiles, and household goods; livestock; seafood; general sustenance cargo; and garments, footwear, e-commerce, and other retail merchandise. This segment also operates an expedited service from China to Long Beach, California, and various islands in the South Pacific, as well as Okinawa, Japan; and provides stevedoring, refrigerated cargo services, inland transportation, container equipment maintenance, and other terminal services to ocean carriers on the Hawaiian islands of Oahu, Hawaii, Maui, and Kauai, as well as in the Alaska locations of Anchorage, Kodiak, and Dutch Harbor. In addition, it offers vessel management and container transshipment services. The Logistics segment provides multimodal transportation brokerage services, including domestic and international rail intermodal, long-haul and regional highway trucking, specialized hauling, flat-bed and project, less-than-truckload, and expedited freight services; less-than-container load consolidation and freight forwarding services; warehousing and distribution services; supply chain management services, and non-vessel operating common carrier freight forwarding services. It serves the U.S. military, freight forwarders, retailers, consumer goods, automobile manufacturers, and other customers. The company was formerly known as Alexander & Baldwin Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to Matson, Inc. in June 2012. Matson, Inc. was founded in 1882 and is headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii.