Comparing Intertape Polymer Group (OTCMKTS:ITPOF) and Ball (NYSE:BALL)

Ball (NYSE:BALL) and Intertape Polymer Group (OTCMKTS:ITPOF) are both materials companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their risk, analyst recommendations, valuation, earnings, institutional ownership, profitability and dividends.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Ball and Intertape Polymer Group, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Ball	1	4	8	0	2.54
Intertape Polymer Group	0	0	0	0	0.00

Ball currently has a consensus target price of $71.69, suggesting a potential upside of 12.56%. Given Ball’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Ball is more favorable than Intertape Polymer Group.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Ball and Intertape Polymer Group”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Ball	$13.16 billion	1.28	$912.00 million	$3.53	18.04
Intertape Polymer Group	$1.53 billion	1.22	$67.81 million	($0.15)	-209.33

Ball has higher revenue and earnings than Intertape Polymer Group. Intertape Polymer Group is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Ball, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

86.5% of Ball shares are held by institutional investors. 0.6% of Ball shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Ball and Intertape Polymer Group’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Ball	6.61%	18.76%	5.35%
Intertape Polymer Group	-0.50%	35.79%	9.19%

Risk & Volatility

Ball has a beta of 0.98, meaning that its share price is 2% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Intertape Polymer Group has a beta of 1.96, meaning that its share price is 96% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

Ball pays an annual dividend of $0.80 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.3%. Intertape Polymer Group pays an annual dividend of $0.68 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.2%. Ball pays out 22.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Intertape Polymer Group pays out -453.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Intertape Polymer Group is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Summary

Ball beats Intertape Polymer Group on 11 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Ball

Ball Corporation supplies aluminum packaging products for the beverage, personal care, and household products industries in the United States, Brazil, and internationally. The company manufactures and sells aluminum beverage containers to fillers of carbonated soft drinks, beer, energy drinks, and other beverages. It also manufactures and sells extruded aluminum aerosol containers, recloseable aluminum bottles, aluminum cups, and aluminum slugs. Ball Corporation was founded in 1880 and is headquartered in Westminster, Colorado.

About Intertape Polymer Group

Intertape Polymer Group Inc. provides packaging and protective solutions for the industrial markets in North America, Europe, and internationally. The company offers pressure-sensitive and water-activated tapes; packaging equipment; industrial and performance specialty tapes, such as masking, duct, electrical, foil, process indicator, sheathing, sports, and reinforced filament tapes; protective packaging solutions, including inflatable systems, mailer products, bubble cushioning, paper void fills, thermal solutions, and protective foam roll stocks; stencil products; shrink films; stretch and lumber wraps; structure and geomembrane fabrics; non-manufactured flexible intermediate bulk containers; specialized polyolefin films; and engineered coated products for industrial and retail use. It sells its products through various distribution channels. The company serves food and beverage, general manufacturing, fulfillment/e-commerce, retail and transportation, building and construction, consumer, oil and gas, aerospace, marine, composites, moving and storage, general manufacturing, mailing, HVAC, and military and medical applications. Intertape Polymer Group Inc. was founded in 1981 and is headquartered in Saint-Laurent, Canada.