Clarus (NASDAQ:CLAR) & Academy Sports and Outdoors (NASDAQ:ASO) Head to Head Comparison

Clarus (NASDAQ:CLAR) and Academy Sports and Outdoors (NASDAQ:ASO) are both consumer discretionary companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, dividends, risk, valuation, earnings, profitability and institutional ownership.

Volatility and Risk

Clarus has a beta of 0.87, indicating that its stock price is 13% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Academy Sports and Outdoors has a beta of 1.3, indicating that its stock price is 30% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Clarus and Academy Sports and Outdoors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Clarus	-32.40%	-3.70%	-2.95%
Academy Sports and Outdoors	6.55%	19.62%	7.70%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

90.3% of Clarus shares are held by institutional investors. 22.3% of Clarus shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 3.6% of Academy Sports and Outdoors shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Dividends

Clarus pays an annual dividend of $0.10 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.7%. Academy Sports and Outdoors pays an annual dividend of $0.52 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.0%. Clarus pays out -4.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Academy Sports and Outdoors pays out 9.6% 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. Academy Sports and Outdoors has raised its dividend for 3 consecutive years. Clarus is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Clarus and Academy Sports and Outdoors”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Clarus	$264.32 million	0.54	-$52.29 million	($2.15)	-1.73
Academy Sports and Outdoors	$5.93 billion	0.60	$418.45 million	$5.44	9.92

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

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings for Clarus and Academy Sports and Outdoors, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Clarus	0	2	2	0	2.50
Academy Sports and Outdoors	0	8	9	0	2.53

Clarus presently has a consensus target price of $4.75, indicating a potential upside of 27.35%. Academy Sports and Outdoors has a consensus target price of $58.2353, indicating a potential upside of 7.94%. Given Clarus’ higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Clarus is more favorable than Academy Sports and Outdoors.

Summary

Academy Sports and Outdoors beats Clarus on 12 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Clarus

Clarus Corporation designs, develops, manufactures, and distributes outdoor equipment and lifestyle products in the United States and internationally. The company operates through two segments, Outdoor and Adventure. The Outdoor segment offers apparels, such as shells, insulation, midlayers, pants, and logowear; rock-climbing footwear and equipment, including carabiners, protection devices, harnesses, belay devices, helmets, and ice-climbing gears; technical backpacks and day packs; trekking poles; headlamps and lanterns; gloves and mittens; and skis, ski poles, ski skins, avalanche airbag systems, avalanche transceivers, shovels, and probes. This segment offers its products for climbing, mountaineering, trail running, backpacking, skiing, and other outdoor recreation activities under the Black Diamond Equipment and PIEPS brands. The Adventure segment offers engineered automotive roof racks, trays, mounting systems, luggage boxes, carriers, recovery boards, and accessories under the Rhino-Rack brand; and overlanding and off-road vehicle recovery and extraction tracks for the overland and the off-road market under the MAXTRAX brand, as well as sells and retails overlanding and off-road vehicle under the TRED brand. It markets and distributes its products through independent specialty stores and specialty chains, sporting goods and outdoor recreation stores, distributors, and original equipment manufacturers; and independent distributors, as well as through its websites. The company was formerly known as Black Diamond, Inc. and changed its name to Clarus Corporation in August 2017. The company was founded in 1957 and is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah.

About Academy Sports and Outdoors

Academy Sports and Outdoors, Inc., through its subsidiaries, operates as a sporting goods and outdoor recreational retailer in the United States. The company outdoor division comprises camping products, such as coolers and drinkware, and camping accessories and equipment,; fishing products, including marine equipment and fishing rods, reels, and baits and equipment; and hunting products, which includes firearms, ammunition, archery and archery equipment, camouflage apparel, waders, shooting accessories, gun safes, optics, airguns, and hunting equipment. Its sports and recreation division offers fitness equipment, fitness accessories, and nutrition supplies; team and specialty sports equipment, including baseball, football, basketball, soccer, golf, racket sports, volleyball, backpacks, and sports bags; recreation products, which includes patio furniture, outdoor cooking, trampolines, play sets, watersports, and pet equipment, as well as wheeled goods including bicycles, skateboards, and other ride-on toys; and electronics and watches, as well as front-end products, such as consumables, batteries, etc. The company's apparel division provides outdoor and seasonal apparel, denim, work apparel, graphic t-shirts, and accessories; boys and girls outdoor, and athletic apparel; sporting and fitness apparel; and professional and collegiate team licensed apparel and accessories. Its footwear division offers casual shoes, slippers, seasonal footwear, and socks; work and western boots, shoes, and hunting footwear; boys and girls footwear; athletic footwear, such as running shoes, athletic lifestyle, and training shoes; and team and specialty sports footwear, and slides. The company sells its products under the Academy Sports + Outdoors, Magellan Outdoors, BCG, O'rageous, Game Winner, Outdoor Gourmet, and Freely brand names. Academy Sports and Outdoors, Inc. was founded in 1938 and is headquartered in Katy, Texas.