Analyzing Standard Lithium (SLI) and The Competition

Standard Lithium (NYSE:SLI) is one of 32 public companies in the “Chemicals & allied products” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its competitors? We will compare Standard Lithium to similar companies based on the strength of its dividends, valuation, earnings, analyst recommendations, risk, profitability and institutional ownership.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

16.8% of Standard Lithium shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 68.4% of shares of all “Chemicals & allied products” companies are owned by institutional investors. 3.7% of Standard Lithium shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 10.1% of shares of all “Chemicals & allied products” companies are owned by company 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 target prices for Standard Lithium and its competitors, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Standard Lithium	0	0	1	0	3.00
Standard Lithium Competitors	119	1198	1534	44	2.52

Standard Lithium presently has a consensus target price of $3.50, indicating a potential upside of 66.67%. As a group, “Chemicals & allied products” companies have a potential upside of 8.33%. Given Standard Lithium’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Standard Lithium is more favorable than its competitors.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Standard Lithium and its competitors revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Standard Lithium	N/A	$108.82 million	-9.13
Standard Lithium Competitors	$3.92 billion	$218.45 million	16.16

Standard Lithium’s competitors have higher revenue and earnings than Standard Lithium. Standard Lithium 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.

Risk and Volatility

Standard Lithium has a beta of 1.89, suggesting that its stock price is 89% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Standard Lithium’s competitors have a beta of 1.84, suggesting that their average stock price is 84% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

Standard Lithium pays an annual dividend of $2.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 95.2%. Standard Lithium pays out -869.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, “Chemicals & allied products” companies pay a dividend yield of 1.8% and pay out 40.8% of their earnings in the form of a dividend. Standard Lithium is clearly a better dividend stock than its competitors, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Profitability

This table compares Standard Lithium and its competitors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Standard Lithium	N/A	-15.67%	-14.05%
Standard Lithium Competitors	-616.25%	5.75%	-0.34%

Summary

Standard Lithium competitors beat Standard Lithium on 8 of the 15 factors compared.

About Standard Lithium

Standard Lithium Ltd. explores for, develops, and processes lithium brine properties in the United States. Its flagship project is the Lanxess project with area of approximately 150,000 acres located in southern Arkansas. The company was formerly known as Patriot Petroleum Corp. and changed its name to Standard Lithium Ltd. in December 2016. Standard Lithium Ltd. was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.