Critical Contrast: Century Aluminum (NASDAQ:CENX) & Mueller Industries (NYSE:MLI)

Mueller Industries (NYSE:MLI) and Century Aluminum (NASDAQ:CENX) are both industrials companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, institutional ownership, earnings, risk, analyst recommendations, dividends and valuation.

Profitability

This table compares Mueller Industries and Century Aluminum’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Mueller Industries	15.92%	23.17%	19.51%
Century Aluminum	5.17%	19.06%	6.43%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

94.5% of Mueller Industries shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 61.6% of Century Aluminum shares are held by institutional investors. 2.7% of Mueller Industries shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.8% of Century Aluminum shares are held 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.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Mueller Industries and Century Aluminum, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Mueller Industries	0	0	1	0	3.00
Century Aluminum	0	0	3	0	3.00

Mueller Industries presently has a consensus price target of $105.00, suggesting a potential upside of 25.20%. Century Aluminum has a consensus price target of $24.33, suggesting a potential upside of 27.57%. Given Century Aluminum’s higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Century Aluminum is more favorable than Mueller Industries.

Risk & Volatility

Mueller Industries has a beta of 1.01, indicating that its stock price is 1% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Century Aluminum has a beta of 2.55, indicating that its stock price is 155% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Mueller Industries and Century Aluminum”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Mueller Industries	$3.77 billion	2.46	$604.88 million	$5.49	15.28
Century Aluminum	$2.22 billion	0.80	$336.80 million	$1.18	16.17

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

Summary

Mueller Industries beats Century Aluminum on 9 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Mueller Industries

Mueller Industries, Inc. manufactures and sells copper, brass, aluminum, and plastic products in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, South Korea, the Middle East, China, and Mexico. It operates through three segments: Piping Systems, Industrial Metals, and Climate. The Piping Systems segment offers copper tubes, fittings, line sets, and pipe nipples. It also resells steel pipes, brass and plastic plumbing valves, malleable iron fittings and faucets, and plumbing specialties; and supplies water tubes. This segment sells its products to wholesalers in the plumbing and refrigeration markets, distributors to the manufactured housing and recreational vehicle industries, building material retailers, and air-conditioning original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). The Industrial Metals segment manufactures brass, bronze, and copper alloy rods; plumbing brass, valves, fittings, and gas assemblies; cold-form aluminum and copper products; machining of aluminum, steel, brass, and cast iron impacts and castings; brass and aluminum forgings; brass, aluminum, and stainless-steel valves; fluid control solutions; and gas train assembles to OEMs in the industrial, construction, HVAC, plumbing, and refrigeration markets. The Climate segment offers valves, protection devices, and brass fittings for various OEMs in the commercial HVAC and refrigeration markets; high-pressure components and accessories for the air-conditioning and refrigeration markets; coaxial heat exchangers and twisted tubes for the HVAC, geothermal, refrigeration, swimming pool heat pump, marine, ice machine, commercial boiler, and heat reclamation markets; and insulated HVAC flexible duct systems. Mueller Industries, Inc. was founded in 1917 and is headquartered in Collierville, Tennessee.

About Century Aluminum

Century Aluminum Company, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the production of standard-grade and value-added primary aluminum products in the United States and Iceland. It also owns and operates an alumina production facility in Iceland, and a carbon anode production facility in the Netherlands. The company was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.