Financial Review: Aya Gold & Silver (NASDAQ:AYA) and Alcoa (NYSE:AA)

Aya Gold & Silver (NASDAQ:AYA) and Alcoa (NYSE:AA) are both materials companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, risk, profitability, dividends, valuation, institutional ownership and earnings.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for Aya Gold & Silver and Alcoa, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Aya Gold & Silver	0	0	2	2	3.50
Alcoa	1	6	6	0	2.38

Alcoa has a consensus price target of $58.23, suggesting a potential upside of 43.13%. Given Alcoa’s higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Alcoa is more favorable than Aya Gold & Silver.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

82.4% of Alcoa shares are held by institutional investors. 0.4% of Alcoa shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Aya Gold & Silver and Alcoa”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Aya Gold & Silver	$202.10 million	18.95	$45.56 million	$0.56	47.48
Alcoa	$14.31 billion	0.75	$1.16 billion	$5.79	7.03

Alcoa has higher revenue and earnings than Aya Gold & Silver. Alcoa is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Aya Gold & Silver, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Aya Gold & Silver and Alcoa’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Aya Gold & Silver	32.92%	25.49%	17.70%
Alcoa	10.77%	24.58%	10.03%

Summary

Alcoa beats Aya Gold & Silver on 7 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Aya Gold & Silver

Aya Gold & Silver Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the exploration, evaluation and development of precious metals projects principally in Morocco. The company primarily explores for gold and silver deposits. Its flagship project holds Zgounder property. Aya Gold & Silver Inc. is based in Mount Royal, Canada.

About Alcoa

Alcoa Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, produces and sells bauxite, alumina, and aluminum products in the United States, Spain, Australia, Iceland, Norway, Brazil, Canada, and internationally. The company operates through two segments, Alumina and Aluminum. It engages in bauxite mining operations; and processes bauxite into alumina and sells it to customers who process it into industrial chemical products, as well as aluminum smelting and casting businesses. The company offers primary aluminum in the form of alloy ingot or value-add ingot to customers that produce products for the transportation, building and construction, packaging, wire, and other industrial markets; and flat-rolled aluminum in the form of sheet, which is sold primarily to customers that produce beverage and food cans. In addition, it owns hydro power plants that generates and sells electricity in the wholesale market to traders, large industrial consumers, distribution companies, and other generation companies. The company was formerly known as Alcoa Upstream Corporation and changed its name to Alcoa Corporation in October 2016. The company was founded in 1886 and is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.