Comparing Ryerson (NYSE:RYZ) and Wajax (OTCMKTS:WJXFF)

Wajax (OTCMKTS:WJXFF) and Ryerson (NYSE:RYZ) are both industrials companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, dividends, risk, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, earnings and profitability.

Dividends

Wajax pays an annual dividend of $2.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 10.4%. Ryerson pays an annual dividend of $0.75 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.7%. Wajax pays out 96.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Ryerson pays out -60.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Wajax and Ryerson”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Wajax	N/A	N/A	N/A	$2.48	9.34
Ryerson	$4.57 billion	0.32	-$56.40 million	($1.24)	-22.60

Wajax has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Ryerson. Ryerson is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Wajax, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Wajax and Ryerson’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Wajax	N/A	N/A	N/A
Ryerson	-0.56%	-0.62%	-0.21%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for Wajax and Ryerson, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Wajax	0	3	0	0	2.00
Ryerson	2	1	0	0	1.33

Institutional and Insider Ownership

32.4% of Wajax shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 94.8% of Ryerson shares are held by institutional investors. 6.6% of Ryerson shares are held 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.

Summary

Wajax beats Ryerson on 7 of the 11 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Wajax

Wajax Corporation provides equipment, parts, and services to construction, forestry, mining, industrial and commercial, oil sands, transportation, metal processing, government, utilities, and oil and gas sectors. The company offers compact excavators, dump trucks, excavators, wheel loaders, and wheeled excavators; aerial devices, boom lifts, cranes, digger derricks, drills, lifts, and material and scissor lifts; marine, off and on highway engines, and transmissions; and feller bunchers, felling heads, flail debarkers, forwarders, grinders, harvesting heads, log loaders, mulchers, skidders, track and wheel harvesters, and woodchippers. It also provides bearings, bulk material handling, filtration, fluid handling, hydraulics, industrial electric motors and variable frequency drives, instrumentation, pneumatics, power transmissions, and PPE and safety supplies, as well as sealing, belting, lubricants, and hydraulic hoses; combination sweeper scrubbers, container handlers, electric ride scooters, end rider trucks, forklifts, goosenecks and ballast weights, order pickers, outdoor cleaning machines, pallet stackers and trucks, reach stackers, rider and walk behind sweepers, side loaders, utility vehicles, tow, terminal, and RoRo tractors; and equipment transport, filtration, fluid handling, mining excavators, rigid frame trucks, rope shovel, underground battery powered and drill jumbos, underground haul trucks and loaders, and underground utility trucks. In addition, the company offers power generation solutions; cages and partitions, guarding and barriers, lockers, cabinets, workstations, rack accessories and protections, racking, shelving, and storage platforms; storage system design, installation, and inspection services, as well as equipment rentals and engineered repair services. The company was formerly known as Wajax Income Fund and changed its name to Wajax Corporation in January 2011. Wajax Corporation was founded in 1858 and is headquartered in Mississauga, Canada.

About Ryerson

Ryerson Holding Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, processes and distributes industrial metals in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and China. It offers a line of products in carbon steel, stainless steel, alloy steels, and aluminum, as well as nickel and red metals in various shapes and forms, including coils, sheets, rounds, hexagons, square and flat bars, plates, structural, and tubing. The company also provides various processing services, such as bending, beveling, blanking, blasting, burning, cutting-to-length, drilling, embossing, flattening, forming, grinding, laser cutting, machining, notching, painting, perforating, polishing, punching, rolling, sawing, scribing, shearing, slitting, stamping, tapping, threading, welding, or other techniques to process materials. It serves various industries, including commercial ground transportation, metal fabrication and machine shops, industrial machinery and equipment manufacturing, consumer durable equipment, HVAC manufacturing, construction equipment manufacturing, food processing and agricultural equipment manufacturing, and oil and gas. The company was founded in 1842 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.