Contrasting KLX Energy Services (NASDAQ:KLXE) & Flotek Industries (NYSE:FTK)

KLX Energy Services (NASDAQ:KLXE) and Flotek Industries (NYSE:FTK) are both small-cap energy companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, risk, dividends, valuation, analyst recommendations, profitability and earnings.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for KLX Energy Services and Flotek Industries, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
KLX Energy Services	1	1	0	0	1.50
Flotek Industries	0	2	3	0	2.60

Flotek Industries has a consensus target price of $21.33, suggesting a potential upside of 25.85%. Given Flotek Industries’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Flotek Industries is more favorable than KLX Energy Services.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares KLX Energy Services and Flotek Industries”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
KLX Energy Services	$636.60 million	0.09	-$77.10 million	($4.18)	-0.70
Flotek Industries	$237.26 million	2.58	$30.53 million	$0.83	20.42

Flotek Industries has lower revenue, but higher earnings than KLX Energy Services. KLX Energy Services is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Flotek Industries, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

42.7% of KLX Energy Services shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 10.9% of Flotek Industries shares are owned by institutional investors. 5.4% of KLX Energy Services shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 2.4% of Flotek Industries shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares KLX Energy Services and Flotek Industries’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
KLX Energy Services	-12.11%	N/A	-18.63%
Flotek Industries	12.87%	21.32%	11.41%

Risk & Volatility

KLX Energy Services has a beta of 0.36, indicating that its stock price is 64% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Flotek Industries has a beta of 1.46, indicating that its stock price is 46% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Flotek Industries beats KLX Energy Services on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About KLX Energy Services

KLX Energy Services Holdings, Inc. provides drilling, completions, production, and well intervention services and products to the onshore oil and gas producing regions of the United States. The company operates through three segments: Southwest, Rocky Mountains, and Northeast/Mid-Con. It provides directional drilling services; downhole navigational and rental tools businesses and support services, including well planning, site supervision, accommodation rentals, and other drilling rentals; and various technologies, including gamma ray, azimuthal gamma ray, real-time continuous inclination and azimuth, rotary steerable, pressure-while-drilling, mode shifting, stick-slip and destructive dynamics, dynamic sequencing and real-time shock, and vibration modules. The company also offers coiled tubing and nitrogen services; wireline services, including pump down perforating, logging, and pipe recover; pressure control products and services; wellhead and hydraulic fracturing rental products and services; flowback and testing services; thru-tubing technologies and services; rig assist snubbing services; cementing products and services; acidizing and pressure pumping services; and downhole completion tools, such as toe sleeves, wet shoe cementing bypass subs, composite plugs, dissolvable plugs, liner hangers, stage cementing tools, inflatables, float and casing equipment, and retrievable completion tools. In addition, it provides production services comprising maintenance-related intervention services; production blow out preventers; mechanical wireline services; slick line services; hydro-testing services; premium tubulars; and other specialized production tools. Further, the company provides intervention services consisting of technicians and equipment that are focused on providing customers engineered solutions to downhole complications. KLX Energy Services Holdings, Inc. was incorporated in 2018 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.

About Flotek Industries

Flotek Industries, Inc. operates as a technology-driven green chemistry and data company that serves customers across industrial and commercial markets in the United States, the United Arab Emirates, and internationally. It operates through two segments: Chemistry Technologies (CT) and Data Analytics (DA). The CT segment designs, develops, manufactures, packages, distributes, delivers, and markets green specialty chemicals that enhance the profitability of hydrocarbon producers, as well as green specialty chemistries, and logistics and technology services. This segment primarily serves integrated oil and gas, oilfield services, independent oil and gas, national and state-owned oil, geothermal energy, solar energy, and alternative energy companies. The DA segment designs, develops, produces, sells, and supports equipment and services that create and provide valuable information on the composition and properties of energy customers' hydrocarbon fluids. It sells its products directly through a mix of in-house sales professionals, as well as contractual agency agreements. Flotek Industries, Inc. was incorporated in 1985 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.