HFWA vs. GCBC, SMBC, HBCP, BHLB, PCSB, CBU, CVBF, BOH, SFNC, and INDB
Should you be buying Heritage Financial stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Heritage Financial include Greene County Bancorp (GCBC), Southern Missouri Bancorp (SMBC), Home Bancorp (HBCP), Berkshire Hills Bancorp (BHLB), PCSB Financial (PCSB), Community Bank System (CBU), CVB Financial (CVBF), Bank of Hawaii (BOH), Simmons First National (SFNC), and Independent Bank (INDB). These companies are all part of the "finance" sector.
Heritage Financial (NASDAQ:HFWA) and Greene County Bancorp (NASDAQ:GCBC) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, media sentiment, institutional ownership, profitability, valuation, dividends, community ranking, earnings and risk.
Heritage Financial pays an annual dividend of $0.92 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.1%. Greene County Bancorp pays an annual dividend of $0.32 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.0%. Heritage Financial pays out 69.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Greene County Bancorp pays out 22.2% 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.
Heritage Financial presently has a consensus target price of $22.25, suggesting a potential upside of 22.72%. Given Heritage Financial's higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Heritage Financial is more favorable than Greene County Bancorp.
Heritage Financial has a beta of 0.56, indicating that its share price is 44% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Greene County Bancorp has a beta of 0.41, indicating that its share price is 59% less volatile than the S&P 500.
In the previous week, Greene County Bancorp had 3 more articles in the media than Heritage Financial. MarketBeat recorded 4 mentions for Greene County Bancorp and 1 mentions for Heritage Financial. Heritage Financial's average media sentiment score of 1.87 beat Greene County Bancorp's score of 0.94 indicating that Heritage Financial is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Heritage Financial has higher revenue and earnings than Greene County Bancorp. Heritage Financial is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Greene County Bancorp, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
78.3% of Heritage Financial shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 13.4% of Greene County Bancorp shares are held by institutional investors. 1.8% of Heritage Financial shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 5.1% of Greene County Bancorp shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
Greene County Bancorp has a net margin of 21.65% compared to Heritage Financial's net margin of 15.70%. Greene County Bancorp's return on equity of 12.86% beat Heritage Financial's return on equity.
Heritage Financial received 211 more outperform votes than Greene County Bancorp when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 58.22% of users gave Heritage Financial an outperform vote while only 52.59% of users gave Greene County Bancorp an outperform vote.
Summary
Heritage Financial beats Greene County Bancorp on 11 of the 19 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding HFWA 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 NASDAQ 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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