Analyzing Rocky Brands (NASDAQ:RCKY) and Wolverine World Wide (NYSE:WWW)

Rocky Brands (NASDAQ:RCKY) and Wolverine World Wide (NYSE:WWW) are both small-cap consumer discretionary companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, dividends, profitability, institutional ownership, risk, analyst recommendations and earnings.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings for Rocky Brands and Wolverine World Wide, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Rocky Brands	0	2	1	0	2.33
Wolverine World Wide	0	6	5	0	2.45

Rocky Brands presently has a consensus target price of $52.00, suggesting a potential downside of 1.67%. Wolverine World Wide has a consensus target price of $23.11, suggesting a potential upside of 4.91%. Given Wolverine World Wide’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Wolverine World Wide is more favorable than Rocky Brands.

Volatility and Risk

Rocky Brands has a beta of 2.39, indicating that its share price is 139% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Wolverine World Wide has a beta of 1.67, indicating that its share price is 67% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

Rocky Brands pays an annual dividend of $0.68 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.3%. Wolverine World Wide pays an annual dividend of $0.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.8%. Rocky Brands pays out 14.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Wolverine World Wide pays out 31.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years.

Profitability

This table compares Rocky Brands and Wolverine World Wide’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Rocky Brands	6.62%	14.36%	7.64%
Wolverine World Wide	5.55%	28.50%	7.23%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

75.1% of Rocky Brands shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 90.2% of Wolverine World Wide shares are owned by institutional investors. 7.6% of Rocky Brands shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 1.5% of Wolverine World Wide shares are owned 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.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Rocky Brands and Wolverine World Wide”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Rocky Brands	$521.30 million	0.76	$22.27 million	$4.55	11.62
Wolverine World Wide	$1.87 billion	0.96	$95.80 million	$1.29	17.08

Wolverine World Wide has higher revenue and earnings than Rocky Brands. Rocky Brands is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Wolverine World Wide, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Wolverine World Wide beats Rocky Brands on 10 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Rocky Brands

Rocky Brands, Inc. designs, manufactures, and markets footwear and apparel in the United States, Canada, and internationally. It operates through Wholesale, Retail, and Contract Manufacturing segments. The Wholesale segment offers products, which includes sporting goods stores, outdoor retailers, independent shoe retailers, hardware stores, catalogs, mass merchants, uniform stores, farm store chains, specialty safety stores, specialty retailers, and online retailers in retail locations through a range of distribution channels. Retail segment sells its products directly to consumers through its websites comprising rockyboots.com, georgiaboot.com, durangoboot.com, muckbootcompany.com, xtratuf.com, lehighoutfitters.com, lehighsafetyshoes.com, and slipgrips.com; and third-party marketplaces and Rocky Outdoor Gear Stores. The Contract Manufacturing segment include private label sales and any sales to customers which are contracted to manufacture a specific footwear product for a customer and include sales to the U.S. Military. In addition, it serves industrial and construction workers, as well as workers in the hospitality industry, such as restaurants or hotels; farmers and ranchers; western; commercial military personnel; hunting, fishing, camping, and hiking enthusiasts; law enforcement, security personnel, and postal employees; and for the U.S. military personnel. The company sells its products under the Rocky, Georgia Boot, Durango, Lehigh, Muck, XTRATUF, Servus, Ranger, and Michelin brand names Rocky Brands, Inc. was formerly known as William Brooks Shoe Co. The company was founded in 1932 and is headquartered in Nelsonville, Ohio.

About Wolverine World Wide

Wolverine World Wide, Inc. designs, manufactures, sources, markets, licenses, and distributes footwear, apparel, and accessories in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia Pacific, Canada and Latin America. It operates through Active Group and Work Group segments. The company offers casual footwear and apparel; performance outdoor and athletic footwear and apparel; kids' footwear; industrial work boots and apparel; and uniform shoes and boots. The company sources and markets a range of footwear and apparel styles, including shoes, boots and sandals under the Bates, Cat, Chaco, Harley-Davidson, Hush Puppies, Hytest, Merrell, Saucony, Sperry, Keds, Sweaty Betty, and Wolverine brands; and licenses under the Stride Rite brand. It also markets Merrell and Wolverine branded apparel and accessories, as well as licenses its brands for use on non-footwear products, including the Hush Puppies apparel, eyewear, watches, socks, handbags, and plush toys; and Wolverine branded eyewear and gloves. In addition, the company markets pigskin leather under the Wolverine Leather division; sourcing division provides consulting services related to product development, production control, quality assurance, materials procurement, compliance, and other service; and multi-brand direct-to-consumer division includes retail stores that sell footwear and apparel of its brand portfolio. Further, it sells its products to department stores, national chains, catalog and specialty retailers, independent retailers, uniform outlets, and mass merchant and government customers through retail stores, third-party licensees and distributors, and joint ventures; and operates brick and mortar retails stores, and e-commerce sites. Additionally, the company operates through a network of retail stores and e-commerce sites. Wolverine World Wide, Inc. was founded in 1883 and is headquartered in Rockford, Michigan.