Critical Survey: Hecla Mining (HL) versus Its Competitors

Hecla Mining (NYSE:HL) is one of 1,984 public companies in the “Metals & Mining” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its competitors? We will compare Hecla Mining to related businesses based on the strength of its earnings, profitability, risk, valuation, institutional ownership, dividends and analyst recommendations.

Profitability

This table compares Hecla Mining and its competitors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Hecla Mining	24.11%	20.94%	16.56%
Hecla Mining Competitors	-1,164,884,689,320,590,400.00%	-52.78%	-2.01%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

63.0% of Hecla Mining shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 16.1% of shares of all “Metals & Mining” companies are owned by institutional investors. 0.7% of Hecla Mining shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 17.6% of shares of all “Metals & Mining” companies are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for Hecla Mining and its competitors, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Hecla Mining	1	6	3	0	2.20
Hecla Mining Competitors	6406	22609	32306	1801	2.47

Hecla Mining currently has a consensus target price of $23.22, indicating a potential upside of 57.71%. As a group, “Metals & Mining” companies have a potential upside of 27.84%. Given Hecla Mining’s higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Hecla Mining is more favorable than its competitors.

Dividends

Hecla Mining pays an annual dividend of $0.01 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.1%. Hecla Mining pays out 1.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, “Metals & Mining” companies pay a dividend yield of 10.3% and pay out 10.8% of their earnings in the form of a dividend.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Hecla Mining and its competitors gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Hecla Mining	$1.42 billion	$321.71 million	26.29
Hecla Mining Competitors	$4.79 billion	$279.47 million	-26.22

Hecla Mining’s competitors have higher revenue, but lower earnings than Hecla Mining. Hecla Mining is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its competitors, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Risk & Volatility

Hecla Mining has a beta of 1.44, meaning that its stock price is 44% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Hecla Mining’s competitors have a beta of 0.98, meaning that their average stock price is 2% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Hecla Mining beats its competitors on 9 of the 15 factors compared.

Hecla Mining Company Profile

Hecla Mining Company, together with its subsidiaries, provides precious and base metal properties in the United States, Canada, Japan, Korea, and China. The company mines for silver, gold, lead, and zinc concentrates, as well as carbon material containing silver and gold for custom smelters, metal traders, and third-party processors; and doré containing silver and gold. It flagship project is the Greens Creek mine located on Admiralty Island in southeast Alaska. Hecla Mining Company was incorporated in 1891 and is headquartered in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.