Critical Review: California Resources (CRC) and Its Competitors

California Resources (NYSE:CRC) is one of 1,051 publicly-traded companies in the “Oil, Gas & Consumable Fuels” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its competitors? We will compare California Resources to similar businesses based on the strength of its institutional ownership, valuation, analyst recommendations, risk, profitability, earnings and dividends.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares California Resources and its competitors top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
California Resources	$3.67 billion	$363.00 million	-8.41
California Resources Competitors	$273.05 billion	$5.52 billion	-0.37

California Resources’ competitors have higher revenue and earnings than California Resources. California Resources is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its competitors, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Profitability

This table compares California Resources and its competitors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
California Resources	-18.11%	9.56%	4.29%
California Resources Competitors	-469.71%	19.37%	6.42%

Dividends

California Resources pays an annual dividend of $1.62 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.4%. California Resources pays out -28.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, “Oil, Gas & Consumable Fuels” companies pay a dividend yield of 9.1% and pay out -115.4% of their earnings in the form of a dividend. California Resources has increased its dividend for 1 consecutive years. California Resources lags its competitors as a dividend stock, given its lower dividend yield and higher payout ratio.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for California Resources and its competitors, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
California Resources	1	2	9	1	2.77
California Resources Competitors	5976	26974	40831	2413	2.52

California Resources presently has a consensus target price of $74.44, indicating a potential upside of 56.18%. As a group, “Oil, Gas & Consumable Fuels” companies have a potential upside of 28.60%. Given California Resources’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts plainly believe California Resources is more favorable than its competitors.

Risk & Volatility

California Resources has a beta of 0.98, indicating that its share price is 2% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, California Resources’ competitors have a beta of -3.76, indicating that their average share price is 476% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

97.8% of California Resources shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 30.8% of shares of all “Oil, Gas & Consumable Fuels” companies are held by institutional investors. 0.5% of California Resources shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 15.3% of shares of all “Oil, Gas & Consumable Fuels” companies are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

California Resources competitors beat California Resources on 8 of the 15 factors compared.

About California Resources

California Resources Corporation operates as an independent oil and natural gas exploration and production, and carbon management company in the United States. The company explores, produces, and markets crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids for marketers, California refineries, and other purchasers that have access to transportation and storage facilities. It also engages in the generation and sale of electricity to the wholesale power market and utility sector; and developing various carbon capture and storage projects in California. The company was incorporated in 2014 and is based in Long Beach, California.