Financial Contrast: Nordic American Tankers (NYSE:NAT) & Toro (NASDAQ:TORO)

Nordic American Tankers (NYSE:NAT) and Toro (NASDAQ:TORO) are both small-cap transportation companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their risk, earnings, institutional ownership, dividends, analyst recommendations, valuation and profitability.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Nordic American Tankers and Toro, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Nordic American Tankers	0	3	0	0	2.00
Toro	1	0	0	0	1.00

Nordic American Tankers currently has a consensus price target of $3.25, indicating a potential downside of 21.59%. Given Nordic American Tankers’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Nordic American Tankers is more favorable than Toro.

Profitability

This table compares Nordic American Tankers and Toro’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Nordic American Tankers	1.12%	0.39%	0.21%
Toro	26.12%	2.61%	1.58%

Volatility and Risk

Nordic American Tankers has a beta of -0.43, indicating that its stock price is 143% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Toro has a beta of 1.14, indicating that its stock price is 14% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Nordic American Tankers and Toro”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Nordic American Tankers	$225.10 million	3.90	$46.64 million	$0.02	207.25
Toro	$22.39 million	3.61	$25.21 million	$0.04	94.00

Nordic American Tankers has higher revenue and earnings than Toro. Toro is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Nordic American Tankers, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

44.3% of Nordic American Tankers shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 1.7% of Toro shares are held by institutional investors. 2.9% of Nordic American Tankers shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Nordic American Tankers beats Toro on 8 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Nordic American Tankers

Nordic American Tankers Limited, a tanker company, acquires and charters double-hull tankers in Bermuda and internationally. It operates a fleet of 20 Suezmax crude oil tankers. The company was incorporated in 1995 and is headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda.

About Toro

Toro Corp., a shipping company, acquires, owns, charters, and operates oceangoing tanker vessels and provides seaborne transportation services for crude oil LPG, and refined petroleum products worldwide. The company operates in three segments: Aframax/LR2 Tanker, Handysize Tanker, and LPG Carrier. As of December 31, 2023, it operated a fleet of one Handysize tanker vessel; one Aframax/LR2 vessel; and four LPG carrier vessels with an aggregate cargo carrying capacity of 0.1 million deadweight ton. Toro Corp. was incorporated in 2022 and is based in Limassol, Cyprus.