Financial Analysis: Titan Machinery (NASDAQ:TITN) vs. Reliance (NYSE:RS)

Reliance (NYSE:RS) and Titan Machinery (NASDAQ:TITN) are both industrials companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, valuation, earnings, institutional ownership, risk, analyst recommendations and profitability.

Volatility & Risk

Reliance has a beta of 0.96, meaning that its share price is 4% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Titan Machinery has a beta of 1.43, meaning that its share price is 43% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Reliance and Titan Machinery, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Reliance	1	5	2	1	2.33
Titan Machinery	1	0	1	0	2.00

Reliance currently has a consensus price target of $379.83, suggesting a potential downside of 3.13%. Titan Machinery has a consensus price target of $29.00, suggesting a potential upside of 20.67%. Given Titan Machinery’s higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Titan Machinery is more favorable than Reliance.

Profitability

This table compares Reliance and Titan Machinery’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Reliance	5.65%	12.51%	8.47%
Titan Machinery	-2.46%	-9.17%	-3.20%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

79.3% of Reliance shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 78.4% of Titan Machinery shares are held by institutional investors. 0.4% of Reliance shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 10.8% of Titan Machinery shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Reliance and Titan Machinery”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	1.40	$739.40 million	$17.20	22.80
Titan Machinery	$2.43 billion	0.23	-$54.17 million	($2.49)	-9.65

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

Summary

Reliance beats Titan Machinery on 12 of the 15 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 Titan Machinery

Titan Machinery Inc. owns and operates a network of full service agricultural and construction equipment stores in the United States, Europe, and Australia. It operates through four segments: Agriculture, Construction, Europe, and Australia. The company sells new and used equipment, including agricultural and construction equipment manufactured under the CNH Industrial family of brands, as well as equipment from various other manufacturers. Its agricultural equipment includes machinery and attachments for use in the production of food, fiber, feed grain, feed stock, and renewable energy; and home and garden applications, as well as maintenance of commercial, residential, and government properties. The company’s construction equipment comprises heavy construction machinery, light industrial machinery for commercial and residential construction, and road and highway construction machinery. It also sells maintenance and replacement parts. In addition, the company offers repair and maintenance services that include warranty repairs, off-site and on-site repair services, scheduling off-season maintenance services, and notifying customers of periodic service requirements; and training programs to customers. Further, it rents equipment; and provides ancillary equipment support services, such as equipment transportation, global positioning system signal subscriptions and other precision farming products, farm data management products, and CNH Industrial finance and insurance products. The company operates in Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Missouri, Washington, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, the United States; Bulgaria, Germany, Romania, and Ukraine, Europe; and New South Wales, South Australia, and Victoria, Australia. Titan Machinery Inc. was founded in 1980 and is headquartered in West Fargo, North Dakota.