Clean Harbors (NYSE:CLH) & Select Water Solutions (NYSE:WTTR) Head to Head Review

Clean Harbors (NYSE:CLH) and Select Water Solutions (NYSE:WTTR) are both business services companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, risk, profitability, dividends, valuation, analyst recommendations and institutional ownership.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent recommendations for Clean Harbors and Select Water Solutions, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Clean Harbors	1	6	6	1	2.50
Select Water Solutions	0	3	2	1	2.67

Clean Harbors presently has a consensus price target of $250.08, suggesting a potential upside of 3.49%. Select Water Solutions has a consensus price target of $14.25, suggesting a potential upside of 31.66%. Given Select Water Solutions’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Select Water Solutions is more favorable than Clean Harbors.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

90.4% of Clean Harbors shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 81.7% of Select Water Solutions shares are owned by institutional investors. 5.6% of Clean Harbors shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 7.6% of Select Water Solutions shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Risk and Volatility

Clean Harbors has a beta of 0.95, indicating that its stock price is 5% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Select Water Solutions has a beta of 0.97, indicating that its stock price is 3% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Clean Harbors and Select Water Solutions”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Clean Harbors	$5.89 billion	2.19	$402.30 million	$7.21	33.52
Select Water Solutions	$1.45 billion	0.90	$30.64 million	$0.19	56.96

Clean Harbors has higher revenue and earnings than Select Water Solutions. Clean Harbors is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Select Water Solutions, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Clean Harbors and Select Water Solutions’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Clean Harbors	6.51%	14.61%	5.25%
Select Water Solutions	1.41%	2.26%	1.38%

Summary

Clean Harbors beats Select Water Solutions on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Clean Harbors

Clean Harbors, Inc. provides environmental and industrial services in the United States and internationally. The company operates through two segments, Environmental Services and Safety-Kleen Sustainability Solutions. The Environmental Services segment collects, transports, treats, and disposes hazardous and non-hazardous waste, such as resource recovery, physical treatment, fuel blending, incineration, landfill disposal, wastewater treatment, lab chemicals disposal, and explosives management services; and offers CleanPack services, including collection, identification, categorization, specialized packaging, transportation, and disposal of laboratory chemicals and household hazardous waste. This segment also provides industrial maintenance and specialty industrial services; and utilizes specialty equipment and resources that performs field services. The Safety-Kleen Sustainability Solutions segment provides pickup and transportation services for hazardous and non-hazardous containerized waste for recycling or disposal; machine cleaning and maintenance, and disposal and replenishment of clean solvent or aqueous fluids; and vacuum services to remove solids, residual oily water, and sludge and other fluids from customers' oil/water separators, sumps, and collection tanks, as well as removes and collects waste fluids found at large and small industrial locations, including metal fabricators, auto maintenance providers, and general manufacturers. This segment also manufactures, formulates, packages, distributes, and markets lubricants and other automotive products. Clean Harbors, Inc. was incorporated in 1980 and is headquartered in Norwell, Massachusetts.

About Select Water Solutions

Select Water Solutions, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides water management and chemical solutions to the energy industry in the United States. The company operates through three segments: Water Services, Water Infrastructure, and Chemical Technologies. The Water Services segment provides water-related services, including water sourcing, water transfer, flowback and well testing, water containment, fluids hauling, water monitoring, and water network automation; technology solutions comprising hydrographic mapping, water volume and quality monitoring, remote pit and tank monitoring, leak detection, asset and fuel tracking, and automated-equipment services, as well as various surface rental equipment and workforce accommodation services. The Water Infrastructure segment engages in the recycling, gathering, transferring, and disposal of water through a network of permanent pipeline infrastructure, semi-permanent pipeline infrastructure, water recycling facilities, earthen pits, water sources, and SWDs; provides solids management services; and develops, builds, and operates semi-permanent and permanent infrastructure solutions. The Chemical Technologies segment provides technical solutions, products, and services related to chemical applications in the oil and gas industry. This segment develops, manufactures, and manages logistics; and provides chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, stimulation, cementing, and well completions for pressure pumpers and oil and gas producers, as well as offers production chemical solutions for underperforming wells, corrosion and scale monitoring, chemical inventory management, well failure analysis, and lab services. It primarily serves oil and gas producers. The company was formerly known as Select Energy Services, Inc. and changed its name to Select Water Solutions, Inc. in May 2023. Select Water Solutions, Inc. was incorporated in 2016 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.