EWBC vs. CBSH, WAL, BPOP, WTFC, SSB, PB, HOMB, UBSI, FFIN, and GBCI
Should you be buying East West Bancorp stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of East West Bancorp include Commerce Bancshares (CBSH), Western Alliance Bancorporation (WAL), Popular (BPOP), Wintrust Financial (WTFC), SouthState (SSB), Prosperity Bancshares (PB), Home Bancshares, Inc. (Conway, AR) (HOMB), United Bankshares (UBSI), First Financial Bankshares (FFIN), and Glacier Bancorp (GBCI). These companies are all part of the "regional banks" industry.
Commerce Bancshares (NASDAQ:CBSH) and East West Bancorp (NASDAQ:EWBC) are both finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, earnings, dividends, community ranking, media sentiment, profitability, risk, institutional ownership and analyst recommendations.
70.3% of Commerce Bancshares shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 89.5% of East West Bancorp shares are held by institutional investors. 3.2% of Commerce Bancshares shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.0% of East West Bancorp shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
East West Bancorp has higher revenue and earnings than Commerce Bancshares. East West Bancorp is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Commerce Bancshares, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Commerce Bancshares currently has a consensus target price of $55.29, indicating a potential downside of 2.94%. East West Bancorp has a consensus target price of $84.08, indicating a potential upside of 8.61%. Given Commerce Bancshares' stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe East West Bancorp is more favorable than Commerce Bancshares.
East West Bancorp has a net margin of 26.78% compared to East West Bancorp's net margin of 23.33%. Commerce Bancshares' return on equity of 17.43% beat East West Bancorp's return on equity.
In the previous week, East West Bancorp had 9 more articles in the media than Commerce Bancshares. MarketBeat recorded 16 mentions for East West Bancorp and 7 mentions for Commerce Bancshares. Commerce Bancshares' average media sentiment score of 1.26 beat East West Bancorp's score of 0.83 indicating that East West Bancorp is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
East West Bancorp received 237 more outperform votes than Commerce Bancshares when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 64.56% of users gave East West Bancorp an outperform vote while only 45.67% of users gave Commerce Bancshares an outperform vote.
Commerce Bancshares pays an annual dividend of $1.08 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.9%. East West Bancorp pays an annual dividend of $2.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.8%. Commerce Bancshares pays out 30.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. East West Bancorp pays out 27.7% 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. Commerce Bancshares has increased its dividend for 56 consecutive years and East West Bancorp has increased its dividend for 7 consecutive years. East West Bancorp is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
Commerce Bancshares has a beta of 0.76, indicating that its stock price is 24% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, East West Bancorp has a beta of 1.38, indicating that its stock price is 38% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Summary
East West Bancorp beats Commerce Bancshares on 17 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding EWBC 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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