Hudbay Minerals (NYSE:HBM) & Searchlight Minerals (OTCMKTS:SRCH) Head-To-Head Contrast

Hudbay Minerals (NYSE:HBM) and Searchlight Minerals (OTCMKTS:SRCH) are both basic materials companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, profitability, dividends, analyst recommendations, earnings, institutional ownership and risk.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

57.8% of Hudbay Minerals shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.3% of Hudbay Minerals shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for Hudbay Minerals and Searchlight Minerals, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Hudbay Minerals	0	0	4	2	3.33
Searchlight Minerals	0	0	0	0	0.00

Hudbay Minerals presently has a consensus target price of $11.17, indicating a potential upside of 27.33%. Given Hudbay Minerals’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Hudbay Minerals is more favorable than Searchlight Minerals.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Hudbay Minerals and Searchlight Minerals”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Hudbay Minerals	$1.69 billion	2.04	$66.37 million	$0.23	38.13
Searchlight Minerals	N/A	N/A	-$2.28 million	N/A	N/A

Hudbay Minerals has higher revenue and earnings than Searchlight Minerals.

Profitability

This table compares Hudbay Minerals and Searchlight Minerals’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Hudbay Minerals	4.23%	7.44%	3.34%
Searchlight Minerals	N/A	N/A	N/A

Risk & Volatility

Hudbay Minerals has a beta of 1.78, indicating that its stock price is 78% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Searchlight Minerals has a beta of 0.25, indicating that its stock price is 75% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Hudbay Minerals beats Searchlight Minerals on 12 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Hudbay Minerals

Hudbay Minerals Inc., a diversified mining company, focuses on the exploration, development, operation, and optimization of properties in North and South America. It produces copper concentrates containing gold, silver, and molybdenum; gold concentrates containing zinc; zinc concentrates; molybdenum concentrates; and silver/gold doré. The company's flagship project is the 100% owned Constancia mine located in the Province of Chumbivilcas in southern Peru. Hudbay Minerals Inc. was founded in 1927 and is based in Toronto, Canada.

About Searchlight Minerals

Searchlight Minerals Corp., an exploration stage company, engages in a slag reprocessing project; and the acquisition and exploration of mineral properties in the United States. It holds interests in the Clarkdale slag project, located in Clarkdale, Arizona, which is a reclamation project to recover precious and base metals from the reprocessing of slag produced from the smelting of copper ore mined at the United Verde Copper Mine in Jerome, Arizona. The company was formerly known as Phage Genomics, Inc and changed its name to Searchlight Minerals Corp. in June 2005. Searchlight Minerals Corp. was founded in 1999 and is based in Henderson, Nevada.