Head-To-Head Survey: Waste Connections (NYSE:WCN) vs. Liquidity Services (NASDAQ:LQDT)

Waste Connections (NYSE:WCN) and Liquidity Services (NASDAQ:LQDT) are both industrials companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, earnings, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, risk, profitability and valuation.

Volatility & Risk

Waste Connections has a beta of 0.49, meaning that its share price is 51% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Liquidity Services has a beta of 1.04, meaning that its share price is 4% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

86.1% of Waste Connections shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 71.2% of Liquidity Services shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.3% of Waste Connections shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 28.1% of Liquidity Services shares are owned by 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 recent ratings and price targets for Waste Connections and Liquidity Services, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Waste Connections	0	3	14	1	2.89
Liquidity Services	0	1	2	0	2.67

Waste Connections presently has a consensus price target of $199.22, indicating a potential upside of 27.23%. Liquidity Services has a consensus price target of $50.00, indicating a potential upside of 14.52%. Given Waste Connections’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities analysts plainly believe Waste Connections is more favorable than Liquidity Services.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Waste Connections and Liquidity Services”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Waste Connections	$9.76 billion	4.03	$1.08 billion	$4.15	37.73
Liquidity Services	$476.67 million	2.87	$28.09 million	$1.02	42.80

Waste Connections has higher revenue and earnings than Liquidity Services. Waste Connections is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Liquidity Services, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Waste Connections and Liquidity Services’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Waste Connections	10.86%	17.31%	6.62%
Liquidity Services	6.79%	17.60%	9.86%

Summary

Waste Connections beats Liquidity Services on 10 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Waste Connections

Waste Connections, Inc. provides non-hazardous waste collection, transfer, disposal, and resource recovery services in the United States and Canada. It offers collection services to residential, commercial, municipal, industrial, and exploration and production (E&P) customers; landfill disposal services; and recycling services for various recyclable materials, including compost, cardboard, mixed paper, plastic containers, glass bottles, and ferrous and aluminum metals. The company owns and operates transfer stations that receive compact and/or load waste to be transported to landfills or treatment facilities through truck, rail, or barge; and intermodal services for the rail haul movement of cargo and solid waste containers in the Pacific Northwest through a network of intermodal facilities. In addition, it provides E&P waste treatment, recovery, and disposal services for waste resulting from oil and natural gas exploration and production activity, such as drilling fluids, drill cuttings, completion fluids, and flowback water; production wastes and produced water during a well's operating life; contaminated soils that require treatment during site reclamation; and substances, which require clean-up after a spill, reserve pit clean-up, or pipeline rupture. Further, the company offers leasing services to its customers. Waste Connections, Inc. was founded in 1997 and is based in Woodbridge, Canada.

About Liquidity Services

Liquidity Services, Inc. provides e-commerce marketplaces, self-directed auction listing tools, and value-added services in the United States and internationally. The company operates through four segments: GovDeals, Retail Supply Chain Group (RSCG), Capital Assets Group (CAG), and Machinio. Its marketplaces include liquidation.com that enable corporations to sell surplus and salvage consumer goods and retail capital assets; GovDeals marketplace, which provides self-directed service solutions in which sellers list their own assets that enables local and state government entities, and commercial businesses located in the United States and Canada to sell surplus and salvage assets; and AllSurplus, a centralized marketplace that connects global buyer base with assets from across the network of marketplaces in a single destination. The company also offers a suite of services, including surplus management, asset valuation, asset sales, marketing, returns management, asset recovery, and ecommerce services. In addition, it operates a global search engine platform for listing used equipment for sale in the construction, machine tool, transportation, printing, and agriculture sectors. The company offers products from industry verticals, such as consumer electronics, general merchandise, apparel, scientific equipment, aerospace parts and equipment, technology hardware, real estate, energy equipment, industrial capital assets, heavy equipment, fleet and transportation equipment, and specialty equipment. The company was incorporated in 1999 and is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland.