Financial Analysis: Reliance (NYSE:RS) vs. New Era Helium (NASDAQ:NEHC)

Reliance (NYSE:RS) and New Era Helium (NASDAQ:NEHC) are both basic materials companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, institutional ownership, valuation, analyst recommendations, risk, profitability and earnings.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

79.3% of Reliance shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 21.9% of New Era Helium shares are held by institutional investors. 0.4% of Reliance shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 6.3% of New Era Helium shares are held 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.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Reliance and New Era Helium”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Reliance	$14.29 billion	1.28	$739.40 million	$15.33	23.47
New Era Helium	$530,024.00	133.26	-$13.78 million	($0.41)	-11.90

Reliance has higher revenue and earnings than New Era Helium. New Era Helium is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Reliance, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Reliance and New Era Helium’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Reliance	5.42%	11.37%	7.77%
New Era Helium	N/A	N/A	N/A

Volatility and Risk

Reliance has a beta of 0.95, meaning that its share price is 5% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, New Era Helium has a beta of 0.19, meaning that its share price is 81% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for Reliance and New Era Helium, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Reliance	1	6	1	0	2.00
New Era Helium	0	0	0	0	0.00

Reliance presently has a consensus price target of $344.67, suggesting a potential downside of 4.21%. Given Reliance’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Reliance is more favorable than New Era Helium.

Summary

Reliance beats New Era Helium on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Reliance

Reliance, Inc. operates as a diversified metal solutions provider and the metals service center company in the United States, Canada, and internationally. The company distributes a line of approximately 100,000 metal products, including alloy, aluminum, brass, copper, carbon steel, stainless steel, titanium, and specialty steel products; and provides metals processing services to general manufacturing, non-residential construction, transportation, aerospace, energy, electronics and semiconductor fabrication, and heavy industries. It sells its products directly to original equipment manufacturers, which primarily include small machine shops and fabricators. The company was formerly known as Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co. and changed its name to Reliance, Inc. in February 2024. Reliance, Inc. was founded in 1939 and is based in Scottsdale, Arizona.

About New Era Helium

New Era Helium, Inc. is an exploration and production company that sources helium produced in association with the production of natural gas reserves in North America. The company was founded in 2023 and is headquartered in Midland, TX.