ALRS vs. AROW, BDGE, SMBK, SHBI, NEWT, GNTY, CAC, HAFC, CARE, and FISI
Should you be buying Alerus Financial stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Alerus Financial include Arrow Financial (AROW), Bridge Bancorp (BDGE), SmartFinancial (SMBK), Shore Bancshares (SHBI), NewtekOne (NEWT), Guaranty Bancshares (GNTY), Camden National (CAC), Hanmi Financial (HAFC), Carter Bankshares (CARE), and Financial Institutions (FISI). These companies are all part of the "finance" sector.
Arrow Financial (NASDAQ:AROW) and Alerus Financial (NASDAQ:ALRS) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, media sentiment, valuation, earnings, analyst recommendations, profitability, risk, community ranking and dividends.
Arrow Financial has a net margin of 14.34% compared to Arrow Financial's net margin of 3.54%. Arrow Financial's return on equity of 8.13% beat Alerus Financial's return on equity.
Arrow Financial pays an annual dividend of $1.08 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.3%. Alerus Financial pays an annual dividend of $0.76 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.8%. Arrow Financial pays out 62.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Alerus Financial pays out 155.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Arrow Financial has increased its dividend for 6 consecutive years and Alerus Financial has increased its dividend for 20 consecutive years. Arrow Financial is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
In the previous week, Alerus Financial had 15 more articles in the media than Arrow Financial. MarketBeat recorded 16 mentions for Alerus Financial and 1 mentions for Arrow Financial. Alerus Financial's average media sentiment score of 0.94 beat Arrow Financial's score of 0.16 indicating that Arrow Financial is being referred to more favorably in the media.
46.7% of Arrow Financial shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 51.3% of Alerus Financial shares are held by institutional investors. 2.9% of Arrow Financial shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 6.1% of Alerus Financial 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.
Alerus Financial has a consensus target price of $23.17, indicating a potential upside of 17.96%. Given Arrow Financial's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Alerus Financial is more favorable than Arrow Financial.
Arrow Financial received 108 more outperform votes than Alerus Financial when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 52.49% of users gave Arrow Financial an outperform vote while only 22.22% of users gave Alerus Financial an outperform vote.
Arrow Financial has a beta of 0.72, meaning that its stock price is 28% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Alerus Financial has a beta of 0.67, meaning that its stock price is 33% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Arrow Financial has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Alerus Financial. Arrow Financial is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Alerus Financial, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Summary
Alerus Financial beats Arrow Financial on 11 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding ALRS and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
Skip ChartThis 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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