Financial Review: SunCoke Energy (SXC) and Its Peers

SunCoke Energy (NYSE:SXC) is one of 1,984 public companies in the “Metals & Mining” industry, but how does it contrast to its peers? We will compare SunCoke Energy to related businesses based on the strength of its risk, earnings, valuation, institutional ownership, profitability, analyst recommendations and dividends.

Volatility and Risk

SunCoke Energy has a beta of 0.94, suggesting that its share price is 6% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, SunCoke Energy’s peers have a beta of 0.96, suggesting that their average share price is 4% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

SunCoke Energy pays an annual dividend of $0.48 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.9%. SunCoke Energy pays out -73.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, “Metals & Mining” companies pay a dividend yield of 10.3% and pay out 10.8% of their earnings in the form of a dividend. SunCoke Energy has increased its dividend for 4 consecutive years.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for SunCoke Energy and its peers, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
SunCoke Energy	0	2	0	0	2.00
SunCoke Energy Competitors	6406	22607	32304	1798	2.47

SunCoke Energy presently has a consensus target price of $11.00, suggesting a potential upside of 12.07%. As a group, “Metals & Mining” companies have a potential upside of 27.84%. Given SunCoke Energy’s peers stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe SunCoke Energy has less favorable growth aspects than its peers.

Profitability

This table compares SunCoke Energy and its peers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
SunCoke Energy	-2.91%	5.68%	2.01%
SunCoke Energy Competitors	-1,168,050,136,845,918,000.00%	-53.09%	-2.10%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

90.5% of SunCoke Energy shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 16.1% of shares of all “Metals & Mining” companies are owned by institutional investors. 1.7% of SunCoke Energy shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 17.6% of shares of all “Metals & Mining” companies are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares SunCoke Energy and its peers top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
SunCoke Energy	$1.84 billion	-$44.20 million	-15.10
SunCoke Energy Competitors	$4.65 billion	$278.94 million	-26.33

SunCoke Energy’s peers have higher revenue and earnings than SunCoke Energy. SunCoke Energy is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Summary

SunCoke Energy peers beat SunCoke Energy on 9 of the 15 factors compared.

About SunCoke Energy

SunCoke Energy, Inc. operates as an independent producer of coke in the Americas and Brazil. The company operates through three segments: Domestic Coke, Brazil Coke, and Logistics. It offers metallurgical and thermal coal. The company also provides handling and/or mixing services to steel, coke, electric utility, coal producing, and other manufacturing based customers. In addition, it owns and operates cokemaking facilities in the United States and Brazil. The company was founded in 1960 and is headquartered in Lisle, Illinois.