Marine Petroleum Trust (NASDAQ:MARPS) and Delek US (NYSE:DK) Critical Review

Marine Petroleum Trust (NASDAQ:MARPS) and Delek US (NYSE:DK) are both energy companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, analyst recommendations, earnings, institutional ownership, profitability, valuation and risk.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for Marine Petroleum Trust and Delek US, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Marine Petroleum Trust	0	1	0	0	2.00
Delek US	0	7	5	1	2.54

Delek US has a consensus price target of $65.45, suggesting a potential downside of 16.13%. Given Delek US’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Delek US is more favorable than Marine Petroleum Trust.

Volatility & Risk

Marine Petroleum Trust has a beta of 0.38, suggesting that its stock price is 62% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Delek US has a beta of 0.59, suggesting that its stock price is 41% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

Marine Petroleum Trust pays an annual dividend of $0.38 per share and has a dividend yield of 8.4%. Delek US pays an annual dividend of $1.02 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.3%. Marine Petroleum Trust pays out 118.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Delek US pays out 28.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Delek US has increased its dividend for 2 consecutive years.

Profitability

This table compares Marine Petroleum Trust and Delek US’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Marine Petroleum Trust	65.28%	66.30%	66.30%
Delek US	1.86%	109.03%	6.44%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

1.8% of Marine Petroleum Trust shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 97.0% of Delek US shares are held by institutional investors. 3.6% of Delek US shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Marine Petroleum Trust and Delek US”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Marine Petroleum Trust	$942,619.00	9.59	$730,000.00	$0.32	14.12
Delek US	$10.72 billion	0.45	-$22.80 million	$3.56	21.92

Marine Petroleum Trust has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Delek US. Marine Petroleum Trust is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Delek US, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Delek US beats Marine Petroleum Trust on 13 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Marine Petroleum Trust

Marine Petroleum Trust, together with its subsidiary, Marine Petroleum Corporation, operates as a royalty trust in the United States. It has overriding royalty interest in oil and natural gas leases in the Central and Western areas of the Gulf of Mexico off the coasts of Louisiana and Texas. Marine Petroleum Trust was founded in 1956 and is based in Dallas, Texas.

About Delek US

Delek US Holdings, Inc. engages in the integrated downstream energy business in the United States. The company operates through Refining, Logistics, and Retail segments. The Refining segment processes crude oil and other feedstock for the manufacture of various grades of gasoline, diesel fuel, aviation fuel, asphalt, and other petroleum-based products that are distributed through owned and third-party product terminal. It owns and operates refineries located in Tyler, Texas; El Dorado, Arkansas; Big Spring, Texas; and Krotz Springs, Louisiana, as well as biodiesel facilities in Crossett, Arkansas, Cleburne, Texas, and New Albany, Mississippi. The Logistics segment gathers, transports, and stores crude oil, intermediate, and refined products; and markets, distributes, transports, and stores refined products, as well as disposes and recycles water for third parties. It owns or leases crude oil transportation pipelines, refined product pipelines, crude oil gathering systems, and associated crude oil storage tanks; and owns and operates light product distribution terminals, as well as markets light products using third-party terminals. The Retail segment owns and leases convenience store sites located primarily in West Texas and New Mexico. Its convenience stores offer various grades of gasoline and diesel under the DK or Alon brand; and food products and service, tobacco products, non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages, and general merchandise, as well as money orders to the public primarily under the 7-Eleven and DK or Alon brand names. It serves oil companies, independent refiners and marketers, jobbers, distributors, utility and transportation companies, government, and independent retail fuel operators. Delek US Holdings, Inc. was founded in 2001 and is headquartered in Brentwood, Tennessee.