LAZ vs. SF, EVR, BGC, PIPR, OPY, FBRC, MS, GS, SCHW, and RJF
Should you be buying Lazard stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Lazard include Stifel Financial (SF), Evercore (EVR), BGC Group (BGC), Piper Sandler Companies (PIPR), Oppenheimer (OPY), FBR & Co. (FBRC), Morgan Stanley (MS), The Goldman Sachs Group (GS), Charles Schwab (SCHW), and Raymond James (RJF). These companies are all part of the "investment banking & brokerage" industry.
Stifel Financial (NYSE:SF) and Lazard (NYSE:LAZ) are both mid-cap finance companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, community ranking, dividends, institutional ownership, valuation, earnings, risk, analyst recommendations and media sentiment.
82.0% of Stifel Financial shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 54.8% of Lazard shares are held by institutional investors. 4.6% of Stifel Financial shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 3.1% of Lazard shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
Stifel Financial currently has a consensus target price of $84.50, suggesting a potential upside of 4.79%. Lazard has a consensus target price of $45.67, suggesting a potential upside of 22.79%. Given Stifel Financial's higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Lazard is more favorable than Stifel Financial.
Stifel Financial has higher revenue and earnings than Lazard. Lazard is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Stifel Financial, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Lazard received 349 more outperform votes than Stifel Financial when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 64.61% of users gave Lazard an outperform vote while only 55.56% of users gave Stifel Financial an outperform vote.
In the previous week, Lazard had 1 more articles in the media than Stifel Financial. MarketBeat recorded 6 mentions for Lazard and 5 mentions for Stifel Financial. Lazard's average media sentiment score of 1.21 beat Stifel Financial's score of 0.86 indicating that Stifel Financial is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Stifel Financial has a net margin of 11.34% compared to Stifel Financial's net margin of -0.63%. Stifel Financial's return on equity of 37.27% beat Lazard's return on equity.
Stifel Financial has a beta of 1.12, meaning that its share price is 12% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Lazard has a beta of 1.42, meaning that its share price is 42% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Stifel Financial pays an annual dividend of $1.68 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.1%. Lazard pays an annual dividend of $2.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.3%. Stifel Financial pays out 38.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Lazard pays out -571.4% 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. Lazard is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
Summary
Lazard beats Stifel Financial on 10 of the 19 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding LAZ 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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