UVE vs. HTH, STC, SAFT, EIG, HCI, AMSF, PRA, UFCS, DGICA, and GBLI
Should you be buying Universal Insurance stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Universal Insurance include Hilltop (HTH), Stewart Information Services (STC), Safety Insurance Group (SAFT), Employers (EIG), HCI Group (HCI), AMERISAFE (AMSF), ProAssurance (PRA), United Fire Group (UFCS), Donegal Group (DGICA), and Global Indemnity Group (GBLI). These companies are all part of the "property & casualty insurance" industry.
Hilltop (NYSE:HTH) and Universal Insurance (NYSE:UVE) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, risk, earnings, profitability, analyst recommendations, dividends, valuation, community ranking and media sentiment.
57.1% of Hilltop shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 66.6% of Universal Insurance shares are owned by institutional investors. 28.9% of Hilltop shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 17.5% of Universal Insurance shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
Hilltop presently has a consensus target price of $32.00, suggesting a potential upside of 4.61%. Universal Insurance has a consensus target price of $25.00, suggesting a potential upside of 26.84%. Given Hilltop's stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Universal Insurance is more favorable than Hilltop.
Universal Insurance received 40 more outperform votes than Hilltop when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 63.31% of users gave Universal Insurance an outperform vote while only 53.76% of users gave Hilltop an outperform vote.
Hilltop has a beta of 1.1, indicating that its share price is 10% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Universal Insurance has a beta of 0.84, indicating that its share price is 16% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Hilltop pays an annual dividend of $0.68 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.2%. Universal Insurance pays an annual dividend of $0.64 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.2%. Hilltop pays out 39.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Universal Insurance pays out 25.1% 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. Hilltop has raised its dividend for 7 consecutive years. Universal Insurance is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
Hilltop has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Universal Insurance. Universal Insurance is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Hilltop, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
In the previous week, Universal Insurance had 2 more articles in the media than Hilltop. MarketBeat recorded 2 mentions for Universal Insurance and 0 mentions for Hilltop. Hilltop's average media sentiment score of 0.84 beat Universal Insurance's score of -1.00 indicating that Universal Insurance is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Hilltop has a net margin of 6.95% compared to Hilltop's net margin of 5.29%. Hilltop's return on equity of 19.67% beat Universal Insurance's return on equity.
Summary
Universal Insurance beats Hilltop on 14 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding UVE and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
This chart shows the average media sentiment of NYSE and its competitors over the past 90 days as caculated by MarketBeat. The averaged score is equivalent to the following: Very Negative Sentiment <= -1.5, Negative Sentiment > -1.5 and <= -0.5, Neutral Sentiment > -0.5 and < 0.5, Positive Sentiment >= 0.5 and < 1.5, and Very Positive Sentiment >= 1.5.
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