MCY vs. CNA, ORI, RLI, AXS, SIGI, FAF, THG, WTM, AGO, and HTH
Should you be buying Mercury General stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Mercury General include CNA Financial (CNA), Old Republic International (ORI), RLI (RLI), AXIS Capital (AXS), Selective Insurance Group (SIGI), First American Financial (FAF), The Hanover Insurance Group (THG), White Mountains Insurance Group (WTM), Assured Guaranty (AGO), and Hilltop (HTH). These companies are all part of the "property & casualty insurance" industry.
CNA Financial (NYSE:CNA) and Mercury General (NYSE:MCY) are both finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, profitability, institutional ownership, earnings, media sentiment, valuation, community ranking, risk and analyst recommendations.
CNA Financial has a net margin of 9.17% compared to CNA Financial's net margin of 4.48%. Mercury General's return on equity of 14.27% beat CNA Financial's return on equity.
CNA Financial received 53 more outperform votes than Mercury General when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 66.82% of users gave CNA Financial an outperform vote while only 50.73% of users gave Mercury General an outperform vote.
CNA Financial pays an annual dividend of $1.76 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.9%. Mercury General pays an annual dividend of $1.27 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.3%. CNA Financial pays out 38.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Mercury General pays out 32.6% 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. CNA Financial has raised its dividend for 8 consecutive years and Mercury General has raised its dividend for 1 consecutive years. CNA Financial is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
CNA Financial currently has a consensus target price of $46.50, indicating a potential upside of 4.19%. Mercury General has a consensus target price of $33.00, indicating a potential downside of 39.84%. Given Mercury General's higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe CNA Financial is more favorable than Mercury General.
In the previous week, CNA Financial had 2 more articles in the media than Mercury General. MarketBeat recorded 3 mentions for CNA Financial and 1 mentions for Mercury General. Mercury General's average media sentiment score of 1.06 beat CNA Financial's score of 0.00 indicating that CNA Financial is being referred to more favorably in the media.
CNA Financial has higher revenue and earnings than Mercury General. CNA Financial is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Mercury General, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
98.5% of CNA Financial shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 42.4% of Mercury General shares are held by institutional investors. 0.3% of CNA Financial shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 35.5% of Mercury General shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
CNA Financial has a beta of 0.65, suggesting that its share price is 35% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Mercury General has a beta of 0.84, suggesting that its share price is 16% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Summary
CNA Financial beats Mercury General 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 MCY 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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