Reviewing Beazer Homes USA (NYSE:BZH) & Lifetime Brands (NASDAQ:LCUT)

Beazer Homes USA (NYSE:BZH) and Lifetime Brands (NASDAQ:LCUT) are both small-cap consumer discretionary companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, earnings, dividends, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, risk and valuation.

Risk & Volatility

Beazer Homes USA has a beta of 2.17, meaning that its stock price is 117% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Lifetime Brands has a beta of 1, meaning that its stock price has a similar volatility profile to the S&P 500.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Beazer Homes USA and Lifetime Brands”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Beazer Homes USA	$2.08 billion	0.43	$45.59 million	($0.30)	-110.60
Lifetime Brands	$661.06 million	0.34	-$26.94 million	$1.43	6.90

Beazer Homes USA has higher revenue and earnings than Lifetime Brands. Beazer Homes USA is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Lifetime Brands, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Beazer Homes USA and Lifetime Brands’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Beazer Homes USA	-0.37%	0.18%	0.08%
Lifetime Brands	4.81%	26.39%	9.21%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

85.7% of Beazer Homes USA shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 40.6% of Lifetime Brands shares are held by institutional investors. 8.0% of Beazer Homes USA shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 44.4% of Lifetime Brands shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and price targets for Beazer Homes USA and Lifetime Brands, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Beazer Homes USA	1	2	0	1	2.25
Lifetime Brands	1	1	1	1	2.50

Lifetime Brands has a consensus price target of $9.50, suggesting a potential downside of 3.70%. Given Lifetime Brands’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Lifetime Brands is more favorable than Beazer Homes USA.

Summary

Lifetime Brands beats Beazer Homes USA on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Beazer Homes USA

Beazer Homes USA, Inc. operates as a homebuilder in the United States. It designs, constructs, and sells single-family and multi-family homes under the Beazer Homes, Gatherings, and Choice Plans names. The company also sells its homes through commissioned new home sales counselors and independent brokers in Arizona, California, Nevada, Texas, Indiana, Delaware, Maryland, Tennessee, Virginia, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Beazer Homes USA, Inc. was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

About Lifetime Brands

Lifetime Brands, Inc. designs, sources, and sells branded kitchenware, tableware, and other products for use in the home in the worldwide. The company provides kitchenware products, including kitchen tools and gadgets, cutlery, kitchen scales, thermometers, cutting boards, shears, cookware, pantryware, spice racks, and bakeware; and tableware products comprising dinnerware, stemware, flatware, and giftware. It also provides home solutions, such as thermal beverageware, bath scales, weather and outdoor household, food storage, neoprene travel, and home décor products. The company owns or licenses various brands, including the Farberware, Mikasa, Taylor, KitchenAid, Pfaltzgraff, BUILT NY, Rabbit, Kamenstein, S’well, and Fred & Friends. It serves mass market merchants, specialty stores, department stores, warehouse clubs, grocery stores, off-price retailers, food service distributors, food and beverage outlets, and e-commerce. The company sells its products directly, as well as through its retail websites. Lifetime Brands, Inc. was founded in 1945 and is headquartered in Garden City, New York.