Reviewing General Steel (OTCMKTS:GSIH) and Nucor (NYSE:NUE)

General Steel (OTCMKTS:GSIH) and Nucor (NYSE:NUE) are both basic materials companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, profitability, risk, analyst recommendations, valuation and dividends.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

76.5% of Nucor shares are held by institutional investors. 53.3% of General Steel shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.5% of Nucor shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and price targets for General Steel and Nucor, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
General Steel	0	0	0	0	0.00
Nucor	0	1	9	0	2.90

Nucor has a consensus price target of $167.20, indicating a potential upside of 13.40%. Given Nucor’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Nucor is more favorable than General Steel.

Profitability

This table compares General Steel and Nucor’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
General Steel	N/A	N/A	N/A
Nucor	5.18%	7.80%	4.87%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares General Steel and Nucor”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
General Steel	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Nucor	$31.88 billion	1.06	$2.03 billion	$7.12	20.71

Nucor has higher revenue and earnings than General Steel.

Volatility and Risk

General Steel has a beta of -1.08, indicating that its stock price is 208% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Nucor has a beta of 1.8, indicating that its stock price is 80% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Nucor beats General Steel on 9 of the 10 factors compared between the two stocks.

About General Steel

General Steel Holdings, Inc. engages in the business of cell research, development, storage, and cell culture service in the People's Republic of China. General Steel Holdings, Inc. was incorporated in 2002 and is headquartered in Beijing, the People's Republic of China.

About Nucor

Nucor Corporation engages in manufacture and sale of steel and steel products. It operates in three segments: steel mills, steel products, and raw materials. The Steel Mills segment produces hot-rolled, cold-rolled, and galvanized sheet steel products; plate steel products; wide-flange beams, beam blanks, and H-piling and sheet piling structural steel products; bar steel products, such as blooms, billets, concrete reinforcing and merchant bars, and engineered special bar quality products; and engages in the steel trading and rebar distribution businesses. This segment sells its products to steel service centers, fabricators, and manufacturers in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The Steel Products segment offers steel joists and joist girders, steel decks, and galvanized torque tubes for used in solar arrays, hollow structural section steel tubing, electrical conduit, fabricated concrete reinforcing steel, cold finished steel, steel fasteners, steel grating and expanded metal, wire and wire mesh, metal building systems, insulated metal panels, steel racking, overhead doors, and utility towers and structures for communications and energy transmission. This segment is also involved in the piling distribution business. The Raw Materials segment produces direct reduced iron (DRI); brokers ferrous and nonferrous metals, pig iron, hot briquetted iron, and DRI; supplies ferro-alloys; processes ferrous and nonferrous scrap metal; and engages in the natural gas production and industrial gas business. This segment sells its ferrous scrap to electric arc furnace steel mills and foundries for manufacturing process; and nonferrous scrap metal to aluminum can producers, secondary aluminum smelters, steel mills and other processors, and consumers of various nonferrous metals. It markets its products through in-house sales force; and internal distribution and trading companies. Nucor Corporation was founded in 1905 and is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina.