Reviewing Dole (NYSE:DOLE) & Archer Daniels Midland (NYSE:ADM)

Dole (NYSE:DOLE) and Archer Daniels Midland (NYSE:ADM) are both consumer staples companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, analyst recommendations, dividends, risk, earnings, valuation and institutional ownership.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Dole and Archer Daniels Midland”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Dole	$8.48 billion	0.18	$125.51 million	$0.15	106.23
Archer Daniels Midland	$83.21 billion	0.39	$1.80 billion	$2.45	27.46

Archer Daniels Midland has higher revenue and earnings than Dole. Archer Daniels Midland is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Dole, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Dole and Archer Daniels Midland, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Dole	0	2	0	0	2.00
Archer Daniels Midland	3	5	1	0	1.78

Dole presently has a consensus target price of $16.00, suggesting a potential upside of 0.41%. Archer Daniels Midland has a consensus target price of $54.50, suggesting a potential downside of 18.99%. Given Dole’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Dole is more favorable than Archer Daniels Midland.

Profitability

This table compares Dole and Archer Daniels Midland’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Dole	0.17%	7.98%	2.56%
Archer Daniels Midland	1.43%	8.01%	3.40%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

78.3% of Archer Daniels Midland shares are owned by institutional investors. 41.8% of Dole shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 1.2% of Archer Daniels Midland shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Dividends

Dole pays an annual dividend of $0.34 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.1%. Archer Daniels Midland pays an annual dividend of $2.04 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.0%. Dole pays out 226.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Archer Daniels Midland pays out 83.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Dole has raised its dividend for 1 consecutive years and Archer Daniels Midland has raised its dividend for 53 consecutive years. Archer Daniels Midland is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Risk & Volatility

Dole has a beta of 0.64, suggesting that its stock price is 36% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Archer Daniels Midland has a beta of 0.7, suggesting that its stock price is 30% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Archer Daniels Midland beats Dole on 13 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Dole

Dole Food Company, Inc. (Dole) is a producer, marketer and distributor of fresh fruit and fresh vegetables. The Company is a producer of bananas and pineapples, and packaged fruit products, packaged salads and fresh-packed vegetables. The Company has three business segments: fresh fruit, fresh vegetables and packaged foods. The fresh fruit segment contains operating divisions that produce and market fresh fruit to wholesale, retail and institutional customers worldwide. The fresh vegetables segment produces and markets fresh-packed and value-added vegetables and salads to wholesale, retail and institutional customers, primarily in North America and Europe. The packaged foods segment contains several operating divisions that produce and market packaged foods, including fruit, juices, frozen fruit and healthy snack foods. In November 2013, Dole Food Company, Inc announced that an investor group acquired the remaining 60.43% interest in the Company.

About Archer Daniels Midland

Archer-Daniels-Midland Company engages in the procurement, transportation, storage, processing, and merchandising of agricultural commodities, ingredients, flavors, and solutions in the United States, Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, the United Kingdom, and internationally. It operates in three segments: Ag Services and Oilseeds, Carbohydrate Solutions, and Nutrition. The company originates, merchandises, stores, and transports agricultural raw materials, such as oilseeds and soft seeds. It also engages in the agricultural commodity and feed product import, export, and distribution; and various structured trade finance activities. In addition, the company offers soybean meal and oil; vegetable and salad oils and protein meals; ingredients for the food, feed, energy, and industrial customers; margarine, shortening, and other food products; and partially refined oils to produce biodiesel and glycols for use in chemicals, paints, and other industrial products. Further, it provides peanuts, peanut-derived ingredients, and cotton cellulose pulp; sweeteners, corn and wheat starches, syrup, glucose, wheat flour, and dextrose; alcohol, and other food and animal feed ingredients; ethyl alcohol and ethanol; corn gluten feed and meal; distillers' grains; corn germ; and citric acids. Additionally, the company provides proteins, natural flavors, flavor systems, natural colors, emulsifiers, soluble fiber, polyols, hydrocolloids, probiotics, prebiotics, postbiotics, enzymes, and botanical extracts; and other specialty food and feed ingredients; edible beans; formula feeds, and animal health and nutrition products; and contract and private label pet treats and food products. It also offers futures commission merchant; commodity brokerage services; cash margins and securities pledged to commodity exchange clearinghouse; and cash pledged as security under certain insurance arrangements. The company was founded in 1902 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.