WAFD vs. BANC, NWBI, WSFS, OCFC, DCOM, TRMK, NBTB, WSBC, TBBK, 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), Trustmark (TRMK), NBT Bancorp (NBTB), WesBanco (WSBC), Bancorp (TBBK), 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 better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their community ranking, valuation, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, dividends, earnings, profitability, risk and media sentiment.
86.9% of Banc of California shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 83.7% of WaFd shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.8% of Banc of California shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 2.3% of WaFd shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
In the previous week, WaFd had 1 more articles in the media than Banc of California. MarketBeat recorded 2 mentions for WaFd and 1 mentions for Banc of California. Banc of California's average media sentiment score of 0.52 beat WaFd's score of -0.60 indicating that WaFd is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Banc of California pays an annual dividend of $0.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.7%. WaFd pays an annual dividend of $1.04 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.6%. 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.
Banc of California has a beta of 1.17, suggesting that its share price is 17% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, WaFd has a beta of 0.84, suggesting that its share price is 16% less volatile than the S&P 500.
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.
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.
Banc of California currently has a consensus target price of $16.64, indicating a potential upside of 12.15%. WaFd has a consensus target price of $34.00, indicating a potential upside of 18.22%. Given Banc of California's stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe WaFd is more favorable than Banc of California.
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.
Summary
WaFd beats Banc of California 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 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.
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