WAFD vs. BANC, NWBI, WSFS, OCFC, DCOM, TBBK, WSBC, NBTB, TRMK, and FRME
Should you be buying WaFd stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of WaFd include Banc of California (BANC), Northwest Bancshares (NWBI), WSFS Financial (WSFS), OceanFirst Financial (OCFC), Dime Community Bancshares (DCOM), Bancorp (TBBK), WesBanco (WSBC), NBT Bancorp (NBTB), Trustmark (TRMK), and First Merchants (FRME). These companies are all part of the "national commercial banks" industry.
Banc of California (NYSE:BANC) and WaFd (NASDAQ:WAFD) are both finance companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, earnings, valuation, dividends, institutional ownership, media sentiment, profitability, risk and community ranking.
Banc of California has a beta of 1.17, meaning that its stock price is 17% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, WaFd has a beta of 0.84, meaning that its stock price is 16% less volatile than the S&P 500.
86.9% of Banc of California shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 83.7% of WaFd shares are owned by institutional investors. 7.4% of Banc of California shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 2.3% of WaFd shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Banc of California received 92 more outperform votes than WaFd when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 58.93% of users gave Banc of California an outperform vote while only 49.43% of users gave WaFd an outperform vote.
Banc of California pays an annual dividend of $0.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.8%. WaFd pays an annual dividend of $1.04 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.7%. Banc of California pays out -12.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. WaFd pays out 39.5% 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. Banc of California has raised its dividend for 1 consecutive years and WaFd has raised its dividend for 13 consecutive years. WaFd is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
WaFd has a net margin of 15.33% compared to WaFd's net margin of -29.10%. Banc of California's return on equity of 10.02% beat WaFd's return on equity.
In the previous week, Banc of California had 8 more articles in the media than WaFd. MarketBeat recorded 18 mentions for Banc of California and 10 mentions for WaFd. WaFd's average media sentiment score of 0.42 beat Banc of California's score of -0.11 indicating that Banc of California is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Banc of California presently has a consensus price target of $16.64, indicating a potential upside of 17.04%. WaFd has a consensus price target of $34.00, indicating a potential upside of 21.26%. Given Banc of California's stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe WaFd is more favorable than Banc of California.
WaFd has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Banc of California. Banc of California is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than WaFd, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Summary
WaFd beats Banc of California on 12 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
Get WaFd News Delivered to You Automatically
Sign up to receive the latest news and ratings for WAFD and its competitors with MarketBeat's FREE daily newsletter.
This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding WAFD 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.
Related Companies and Tools
