Financial Analysis: Marten Transport (MRTN) & Its Peers

Marten Transport (NASDAQ:MRTN) is one of 101 publicly-traded companies in the “Ground Transportation” industry, but how does it contrast to its peers? We will compare Marten Transport to related businesses based on the strength of its institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, risk, profitability, dividends, valuation and earnings.

Volatility & Risk

Marten Transport has a beta of 1.02, suggesting that its stock price is 2% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Marten Transport’s peers have a beta of 1.14, suggesting that their average stock price is 14% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings for Marten Transport and its peers, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Marten Transport	2	1	0	1	2.00
Marten Transport Competitors	1379	6536	8699	267	2.47

Marten Transport presently has a consensus price target of $12.50, suggesting a potential upside of 4.35%. As a group, “Ground Transportation” companies have a potential upside of 16.10%. Given Marten Transport’s peers stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Marten Transport has less favorable growth aspects than its peers.

Dividends

Marten Transport pays an annual dividend of $0.24 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.0%. Marten Transport pays out 133.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. As a group, “Ground Transportation” companies pay a dividend yield of 1.5% and pay out 26.9% of their earnings in the form of a dividend.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

69.1% of Marten Transport shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 58.1% of shares of all “Ground Transportation” companies are owned by institutional investors. 22.6% of Marten Transport shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 14.8% of shares of all “Ground Transportation” companies are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Marten Transport and its peers revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Marten Transport	$860.41 million	$17.44 million	66.55
Marten Transport Competitors	$8.60 billion	$896.49 million	31.23

Marten Transport’s peers have higher revenue and earnings than Marten Transport. Marten Transport is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Profitability

This table compares Marten Transport and its peers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Marten Transport	1.55%	1.74%	1.40%
Marten Transport Competitors	6.87%	12.61%	4.01%

Summary

Marten Transport peers beat Marten Transport on 10 of the 15 factors compared.

Marten Transport Company Profile

Marten Transport, Ltd. is a transportation and logistics company specializing in temperature-controlled freight. Its services include refrigerated truckload transportation, dedicated transportation, intermodal transportation, and freight brokerage. Founded in 1946 and headquartered in Mondovi, Wisconsin, the company serves customers across the United States and in parts of Canada and Mexico. Its transportation services support the movement of perishable goods and other freight requiring specialized equipment or logistics.