WAFD vs. CSFL, SFNC, FFBC, FRME, MTG, RDN, SMPL, TFSL, WD, and NYCB
Should you be buying WaFd stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of WaFd include Centerstate Bank (CSFL), Simmons First National (SFNC), First Financial Bancorp. (FFBC), First Merchants (FRME), MGIC Investment (MTG), Radian Group (RDN), Simply Good Foods (SMPL), TFS Financial (TFSL), Walker & Dunlop (WD), and New York Community Bancorp (NYCB).
Centerstate Bank (NASDAQ:CSFL) and WaFd (NASDAQ:WAFD) are both mid-cap finance companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, risk, profitability, dividends, valuation, community ranking, media sentiment, analyst recommendations and institutional ownership.
Centerstate Bank pays an annual dividend of $0.56 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.1%. WaFd pays an annual dividend of $1.04 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.8%. Centerstate Bank pays out 26.3% 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. WaFd has increased its dividend for 13 consecutive years. WaFd is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
Centerstate Bank received 128 more outperform votes than WaFd when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 65.21% of users gave Centerstate Bank an outperform vote while only 49.31% of users gave WaFd an outperform vote.
WaFd has higher revenue and earnings than Centerstate Bank. Centerstate Bank is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than WaFd, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Centerstate Bank has a net margin of 23.43% compared to Centerstate Bank's net margin of 15.33%. Centerstate Bank's return on equity of 10.02% beat WaFd's return on equity.
74.6% of Centerstate Bank shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 83.7% of WaFd shares are held by institutional investors. 2.3% of Centerstate Bank shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 2.3% of WaFd shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
In the previous week, WaFd had 5 more articles in the media than Centerstate Bank. MarketBeat recorded 5 mentions for WaFd and 0 mentions for Centerstate Bank. Centerstate Bank's average media sentiment score of 1.05 beat WaFd's score of 0.00 indicating that WaFd is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Centerstate Bank has a beta of 0.9, meaning that its share price is 10% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, WaFd has a beta of 0.84, meaning that its share price is 16% less volatile than the S&P 500.
WaFd has a consensus target price of $33.25, indicating a potential upside of 22.06%. Given Centerstate Bank's higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe WaFd is more favorable than Centerstate Bank.
Summary
WaFd beats Centerstate Bank on 11 of the 19 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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