Analyzing Plains All American Pipeline (NASDAQ:PAA) and Toro (NASDAQ:TORO)

Toro (NASDAQ:TORO) and Plains All American Pipeline (NASDAQ:PAA) are both energy companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, valuation, dividends, profitability, risk and analyst recommendations.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

1.7% of Toro shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 41.8% of Plains All American Pipeline shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.1% of Plains All American Pipeline shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and price targets for Toro and Plains All American Pipeline, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Toro	0	1	0	0	2.00
Plains All American Pipeline	2	7	7	1	2.41

Plains All American Pipeline has a consensus target price of $25.43, suggesting a potential upside of 4.13%. Given Plains All American Pipeline’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Plains All American Pipeline is more favorable than Toro.

Volatility and Risk

Toro has a beta of 2.55, indicating that its share price is 155% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Plains All American Pipeline has a beta of 0.52, indicating that its share price is 48% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Toro and Plains All American Pipeline’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Toro	22.67%	2.49%	1.43%
Plains All American Pipeline	5.29%	12.13%	4.59%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Toro and Plains All American Pipeline”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Toro	$21.51 million	5.27	$5.93 million	$0.04	132.00
Plains All American Pipeline	$52.30 billion	0.33	$1.44 billion	$3.61	6.76

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

Summary

Plains All American Pipeline beats Toro on 11 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

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.

About Plains All American Pipeline

Plains All American Pipeline, L.P., through its subsidiaries, engages in the pipeline transportation, terminalling, storage, and gathering of crude oil and natural gas liquids (NGL) in the United States and Canada. The company operates in two segments, Crude Oil and NGL. The Crude Oil segment offers gathering and transporting crude oil through pipelines, gathering systems, trucks, and at times on barges or railcars. This segment provides terminalling, storage, and other facilities-related services, as well as merchant activities. As of December 31, 2021, this segment owned and leased 18,300 miles of active crude oil transportation pipelines and gathering systems, as well as an additional 110 miles of pipelines that supports crude oil storage and terminalling facilities; 74 million barrels of commercial crude oil storage capacity; 38 million barrels of active, above-ground tank capacity; four marine facilities; a condensate processing facility; seven crude oil rail terminals and 2,100 crude oil railcars; and 640 trucks and 1,275 trailers. The Natural Gas Liquids segment engages in the natural gas processing, NGL fractionation, storage, transportation, and terminalling activities. As of December 31, 2021, this segment owned and operated four natural gas processing plants; nine fractionation plants; 28 million barrels of NGL storage capacity; approximately 1,620 miles of active NGL transportation pipelines, as well as an additional 55 miles of pipeline that supports NGL storage facilities; 16 NGL rail terminals and approximately 3,900 NGL rail cars; and approximately 220 trailers. The company was founded in 1981 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.