HIG vs. L, AFG, AIG, ACGL, WRB, CINF, EG, ALL, CNA, and RNR
Should you be buying The Hartford Financial Services Group stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of The Hartford Financial Services Group include Loews (L), American Financial Group (AFG), American International Group (AIG), Arch Capital Group (ACGL), W. R. Berkley (WRB), Cincinnati Financial (CINF), Everest Group (EG), Allstate (ALL), CNA Financial (CNA), and RenaissanceRe (RNR). These companies are all part of the "fire, marine, & casualty insurance" industry.
Loews (NYSE:L) and The Hartford Financial Services Group (NYSE:HIG) are both large-cap finance companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, community ranking, institutional ownership, media sentiment, dividends, risk, analyst recommendations, earnings and valuation.
The Hartford Financial Services Group has higher revenue and earnings than Loews. Loews is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than The Hartford Financial Services Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Loews pays an annual dividend of $0.25 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.3%. The Hartford Financial Services Group pays an annual dividend of $1.88 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.8%. Loews pays out 3.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. The Hartford Financial Services Group pays out 21.4% 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. The Hartford Financial Services Group has raised its dividend for 4 consecutive years. The Hartford Financial Services Group is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
In the previous week, Loews had 1 more articles in the media than The Hartford Financial Services Group. MarketBeat recorded 16 mentions for Loews and 15 mentions for The Hartford Financial Services Group. The Hartford Financial Services Group's average media sentiment score of 0.75 beat Loews' score of 0.64 indicating that Loews is being referred to more favorably in the media.
The Hartford Financial Services Group received 379 more outperform votes than Loews when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 66.77% of users gave The Hartford Financial Services Group an outperform vote while only 60.67% of users gave Loews an outperform vote.
The Hartford Financial Services Group has a net margin of 10.87% compared to The Hartford Financial Services Group's net margin of 9.27%. Loews' return on equity of 20.64% beat The Hartford Financial Services Group's return on equity.
58.3% of Loews shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 93.4% of The Hartford Financial Services Group shares are owned by institutional investors. 18.7% of Loews shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.6% of The Hartford Financial Services Group shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Loews currently has a consensus price target of $170.00, indicating a potential upside of 118.68%. The Hartford Financial Services Group has a consensus price target of $105.88, indicating a potential upside of 2.63%. Given The Hartford Financial Services Group's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities analysts plainly believe Loews is more favorable than The Hartford Financial Services Group.
Loews has a beta of 0.82, suggesting that its share price is 18% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, The Hartford Financial Services Group has a beta of 0.9, suggesting that its share price is 10% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Summary
The Hartford Financial Services Group beats Loews on 15 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding HIG 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.
The Hartford Financial Services Group Competitors List
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