Estée Lauder Companies (NYSE:EL) versus Scott’s Liquid Gold (OTCMKTS:SLGD) Critical Survey

Estée Lauder Companies (NYSE:EL) and Scott’s Liquid Gold (OTCMKTS:SLGD) are both consumer staples companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, valuation, analyst recommendations, profitability, earnings, dividends and institutional ownership.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings for Estée Lauder Companies and Scott’s Liquid Gold, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Estée Lauder Companies	0	15	9	1	2.44
Scott’s Liquid Gold	0	0	0	0	N/A

Estée Lauder Companies currently has a consensus target price of $168.00, suggesting a potential upside of 22.42%. Given Estée Lauder Companies’ higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Estée Lauder Companies is more favorable than Scott’s Liquid Gold.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Estée Lauder Companies and Scott’s Liquid Gold’s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Estée Lauder Companies	$15.16 billion	3.25	$1.01 billion	$1.30	105.56
Scott’s Liquid Gold	N/A	N/A	N/A	$0.13	7.85

Estée Lauder Companies has higher revenue and earnings than Scott’s Liquid Gold. Scott’s Liquid Gold is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Estée Lauder Companies, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

55.2% of Estée Lauder Companies shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 4.9% of Scott’s Liquid Gold shares are held by institutional investors. 12.8% of Estée Lauder Companies shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.5% of Scott’s Liquid Gold shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Estée Lauder Companies and Scott’s Liquid Gold’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Estée Lauder Companies	3.08%	9.78%	2.39%
Scott’s Liquid Gold	N/A	N/A	N/A

Summary

Estée Lauder Companies beats Scott’s Liquid Gold on 11 of the 11 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Estée Lauder Companies

The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. manufactures, markets, and sells skin care, makeup, fragrance, and hair care products worldwide. It offers skin care products, including moisturizers, serums, cleansers, toners, body care, exfoliators, acne care and oil correctors, facial masks, and sun care products; and makeup products, such as lipsticks, lip glosses, mascaras, foundations, eyeshadows, nail polishes, and powders, as well as compacts, brushes, and other makeup tools. The company also provides fragrance products in various forms comprising eau de parfum sprays and colognes, as well as lotions, powders, creams, candles, and soaps; and hair care products that include shampoos, conditioners, styling products, treatment, finishing sprays, and hair color products, as well as sells ancillary products and services. It offers its products under the Estée Lauder, Clinique, Origins, M·A·C, Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, La Mer, Aveda, Jo Malone London, TOM FORD, Too Faced, Dr.Jart+, and The Ordinary brands. The company sells its products through department stores, specialty-multi retailers, upscale perfumeries and pharmacies, and salons and spas; freestanding stores; its own and authorized retailer websites; third-party online malls; stores in airports; and duty-free locations. The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. was founded in 1946 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

About Scott’s Liquid Gold

Scott's Liquid Gold-Inc. develops, markets, and sells household, and health and beauty care products in the United States. It operates in two segments, Household Products, and Health and Beauty Care Products. The Household Products segment offers wood care and floor restore products under the Scott's Liquid Gold name; stain and odor removing products under the Kids N Pets and Messy Pet brand name for children and pets; and laundry care products under the Biz brand name. The Health and Beauty Care Products segment provides skin care products under the Alpha brand; and hair care products under the Prell and Denorex brands. It sells its products through sales force and independent distributors to mass merchandisers, drugstores, supermarkets, hardware stores, e-commerce retailers, and other retail outlets, as well as to wholesale distributors. Scott's Liquid Gold-Inc. was founded in 1951 and is headquartered in Greenwood Village, Colorado.