AGO vs. PFSI, RDN, FCFS, CIT, MTG, FNF, CNA, ORI, RLI, and AXS
Should you be buying Assured Guaranty stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Assured Guaranty include PennyMac Financial Services (PFSI), Radian Group (RDN), FirstCash (FCFS), CIT Group (CIT), MGIC Investment (MTG), Fidelity National Financial (FNF), CNA Financial (CNA), Old Republic International (ORI), RLI (RLI), and AXIS Capital (AXS).
Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) and PennyMac Financial Services (NYSE:PFSI) are both mid-cap finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, profitability, media sentiment, dividends, risk, valuation, earnings, community ranking and institutional ownership.
92.2% of Assured Guaranty shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 57.9% of PennyMac Financial Services shares are held by institutional investors. 5.1% of Assured Guaranty shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 16.6% of PennyMac Financial Services shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
Assured Guaranty has a beta of 1.1, suggesting that its share price is 10% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, PennyMac Financial Services has a beta of 1.7, suggesting that its share price is 70% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Assured Guaranty has higher earnings, but lower revenue than PennyMac Financial Services. Assured Guaranty is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than PennyMac Financial Services, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Assured Guaranty has a net margin of 57.45% compared to PennyMac Financial Services' net margin of 10.94%. Assured Guaranty's return on equity of 12.48% beat PennyMac Financial Services' return on equity.
Assured Guaranty received 7 more outperform votes than PennyMac Financial Services when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 67.69% of users gave Assured Guaranty an outperform vote while only 63.98% of users gave PennyMac Financial Services an outperform vote.
In the previous week, PennyMac Financial Services had 6 more articles in the media than Assured Guaranty. MarketBeat recorded 8 mentions for PennyMac Financial Services and 2 mentions for Assured Guaranty. PennyMac Financial Services' average media sentiment score of 1.21 beat Assured Guaranty's score of 0.69 indicating that PennyMac Financial Services is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Assured Guaranty presently has a consensus target price of $94.50, indicating a potential upside of 24.59%. PennyMac Financial Services has a consensus target price of $97.75, indicating a potential upside of 9.97%. Given Assured Guaranty's higher probable upside, equities analysts plainly believe Assured Guaranty is more favorable than PennyMac Financial Services.
Assured Guaranty pays an annual dividend of $1.24 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.6%. PennyMac Financial Services pays an annual dividend of $0.80 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.9%. Assured Guaranty pays out 9.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. PennyMac Financial Services pays out 27.8% 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. Assured Guaranty is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
Summary
Assured Guaranty beats PennyMac Financial Services on 12 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding AGO 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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