AGO vs. FCFS, ECPG, GDOT, MBI, ORI, RDN, MTG, ESNT, NMIH, and LAZ
Should you be buying Assured Guaranty stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Assured Guaranty include FirstCash (FCFS), Encore Capital Group (ECPG), Green Dot (GDOT), MBIA (MBI), Old Republic International (ORI), Radian Group (RDN), MGIC Investment (MTG), Essent Group (ESNT), NMI (NMIH), and Lazard (LAZ).
Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) and FirstCash (NASDAQ:FCFS) are both mid-cap finance companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their community ranking, earnings, profitability, media sentiment, valuation, risk, dividends, analyst recommendations and institutional ownership.
Assured Guaranty has a net margin of 53.82% compared to FirstCash's net margin of 7.23%. FirstCash's return on equity of 14.73% beat Assured Guaranty's return on equity.
Assured Guaranty currently has a consensus target price of $97.00, suggesting a potential upside of 18.39%. FirstCash has a consensus target price of $142.00, suggesting a potential upside of 19.07%. Given FirstCash's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe FirstCash is more favorable than Assured Guaranty.
In the previous week, Assured Guaranty had 6 more articles in the media than FirstCash. MarketBeat recorded 15 mentions for Assured Guaranty and 9 mentions for FirstCash. FirstCash's average media sentiment score of 0.76 beat Assured Guaranty's score of 0.71 indicating that FirstCash is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Assured Guaranty received 380 more outperform votes than FirstCash when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 67.81% of users gave Assured Guaranty an outperform vote while only 39.02% of users gave FirstCash an outperform vote.
Assured Guaranty pays an annual dividend of $1.24 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.5%. FirstCash pays an annual dividend of $1.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.2%. Assured Guaranty pays out 10.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. FirstCash pays out 27.3% 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.
Assured Guaranty has a beta of 1.14, indicating that its share price is 14% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, FirstCash has a beta of 0.63, indicating that its share price is 37% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Assured Guaranty has higher earnings, but lower revenue than FirstCash. Assured Guaranty is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than FirstCash, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
92.2% of Assured Guaranty shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 80.3% of FirstCash shares are owned by institutional investors. 5.1% of Assured Guaranty shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 18.1% of FirstCash shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
Summary
Assured Guaranty beats FirstCash on 11 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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