Head-To-Head Review: ARQ (NASDAQ:ARQ) and Linde (NASDAQ:LIN)

ARQ (NASDAQ:ARQ) and Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) are both materials companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, earnings, institutional ownership, dividends, risk, profitability and valuation.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for ARQ and Linde, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
ARQ	1	1	1	0	2.00
Linde	0	2	20	2	3.00

ARQ currently has a consensus price target of $5.00, suggesting a potential upside of 153.81%. Linde has a consensus price target of $547.29, suggesting a potential upside of 11.21%. Given ARQ’s higher possible upside, research analysts plainly believe ARQ is more favorable than Linde.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares ARQ and Linde”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
ARQ	$120.34 million	0.71	-$52.61 million	($1.26)	-1.56
Linde	$33.99 billion	6.67	$6.90 billion	$15.48	31.79

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

Risk and Volatility

ARQ has a beta of 2.08, suggesting that its share price is 108% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Linde has a beta of 0.71, suggesting that its share price is 29% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares ARQ and Linde’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
ARQ	-42.33%	-2.54%	-1.88%
Linde	20.43%	20.09%	9.28%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

18.5% of ARQ shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 82.8% of Linde shares are held by institutional investors. 20.1% of ARQ shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.3% of Linde shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

Linde beats ARQ on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About ARQ

Arq, Inc. is a holding company. It engages in the provision of environmental and emission control equipment to the power generation industry. The company operates through the following Segments: Refined Coal and Advanced Purification Technologies. The Refined Coal segment includes the Tinuum Group, Tinuum Services, and GWN Manager. The Advanced Purification Technologies segment refers to the sale of Activated Carbon Injection and Dry Sorbent Injection equipment systems, chemical sales, consulting services, and other sales related to the reduction of emissions in the coal-fired electric generation process and the electric utility industry. The company was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Greenwood Village, CO.

About Linde

Linde plc operates as an industrial gas company in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and South Pacific. It offers atmospheric gases, including oxygen, nitrogen, argon, and rare gases; and process gases, such as carbon dioxide, helium, hydrogen, electronic gases, specialty gases, and acetylene. The company also designs and constructs turnkey process plants for third-party customers, as well as for the gas businesses in various locations, such as air separation, hydrogen, synthesis, olefin, and natural gas plants. It serves a range of industries, including healthcare, chemicals and energy, manufacturing, metals and mining, food and beverage, and electronics. The company was founded in 1879 and is based in Woking, the United Kingdom.