Head to Head Contrast: Marathon Petroleum (MPC) versus Its Rivals

Marathon Petroleum (NYSE:MPC) is one of 1,051 publicly-traded companies in the “Oil, Gas & Consumable Fuels” industry, but how does it compare to its peers? We will compare Marathon Petroleum to similar businesses based on the strength of its profitability, risk, dividends, institutional ownership, earnings, valuation and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations for Marathon Petroleum and its peers, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Marathon Petroleum	0	5	11	1	2.76
Marathon Petroleum Competitors	5969	26959	40797	2413	2.52

Marathon Petroleum currently has a consensus price target of $424.88, suggesting a potential upside of 8.36%. As a group, “Oil, Gas & Consumable Fuels” companies have a potential upside of 26.34%. Given Marathon Petroleum’s peers higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Marathon Petroleum has less favorable growth aspects than its peers.

Risk and Volatility

Marathon Petroleum has a beta of 0.53, suggesting that its share price is 47% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Marathon Petroleum’s peers have a beta of -3.72, suggesting that their average share price is 472% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

Marathon Petroleum pays an annual dividend of $4.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.0%. Marathon Petroleum pays out 13.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, “Oil, Gas & Consumable Fuels” companies pay a dividend yield of 8.9% and pay out -122.4% of their earnings in the form of a dividend. Marathon Petroleum has raised its dividend for 3 consecutive years. Marathon Petroleum lags its peers as a dividend stock, given its lower dividend yield and higher payout ratio.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

76.8% of Marathon Petroleum shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 30.8% of shares of all “Oil, Gas & Consumable Fuels” companies are owned by institutional investors. 0.2% of Marathon Petroleum shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 15.3% of shares of all “Oil, Gas & Consumable Fuels” companies are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Marathon Petroleum and its peers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Marathon Petroleum	8.27%	58.93%	16.20%
Marathon Petroleum Competitors	-470.80%	19.34%	6.40%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Marathon Petroleum and its peers revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Marathon Petroleum	$135.22 billion	$4.05 billion	13.48
Marathon Petroleum Competitors	$14.79 billion	$5.51 billion	-0.35

Marathon Petroleum has higher revenue, but lower earnings than its peers. Marathon Petroleum 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.

Summary

Marathon Petroleum beats its peers on 10 of the 15 factors compared.

Marathon Petroleum Company Profile

Marathon Petroleum Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates as an integrated downstream energy company primarily in the United States. The company operates through Refining & Marketing, and Midstream segments. The Refining & Marketing segment refines crude oil and other feedstocks at its refineries in the Gulf Coast, Mid-Continent, and West Coast regions of the United States; and purchases refined products and ethanol for resale and distributes refined products, including renewable diesel, through transportation, storage, distribution, and marketing services. Its refined products include transportation fuels, such as reformulated gasolines and blend-grade gasolines; heavy fuel oil; and asphalt. This segment also manufactures propane and petrochemicals. It sells refined products to wholesale marketing customers in the United States and internationally, buyers on the spot market, and independent entrepreneurs who operate primarily Marathon branded outlets, as well as through long-term fuel supply contracts to direct dealer locations primarily under the ARCO brand. The Midstream segment transports, stores, distributes, and markets crude oil and refined products through refining logistics assets, pipelines, terminals, towboats, and barges; gathers, processes, and transports natural gas; and gathers, transports, fractionates, stores, and markets natural gas liquids. Marathon Petroleum Corporation was founded in 1887 and is headquartered in Findlay, Ohio.