AGO vs. PFSI, RDN, FCFS, CIT, MTG, FNF, CNA, ORI, RLI, and AXS
Should you be buying Assured Guaranty stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Assured Guaranty include PennyMac Financial Services (PFSI), Radian Group (RDN), FirstCash (FCFS), CIT Group (CIT), MGIC Investment (MTG), Fidelity National Financial (FNF), CNA Financial (CNA), Old Republic International (ORI), RLI (RLI), and AXIS Capital (AXS).
PennyMac Financial Services (NYSE:PFSI) and Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) are both mid-cap finance companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, risk, analyst recommendations, media sentiment, community ranking, profitability, institutional ownership, earnings and valuation.
PennyMac Financial Services currently has a consensus price target of $97.75, suggesting a potential upside of 9.40%. Assured Guaranty has a consensus price target of $94.50, suggesting a potential upside of 22.71%. Given PennyMac Financial Services' higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Assured Guaranty is more favorable than PennyMac Financial Services.
57.9% of PennyMac Financial Services shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 92.2% of Assured Guaranty shares are owned by institutional investors. 16.6% of PennyMac Financial Services shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 5.1% of Assured Guaranty shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
Assured Guaranty has lower revenue, but higher earnings than PennyMac Financial Services. Assured Guaranty is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than PennyMac Financial Services, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
PennyMac Financial Services pays an annual dividend of $0.80 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.9%. Assured Guaranty pays an annual dividend of $1.24 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.6%. PennyMac Financial Services pays out 27.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Assured Guaranty pays out 9.6% 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. Assured Guaranty has increased its dividend for 6 consecutive years. Assured Guaranty is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
In the previous week, PennyMac Financial Services had 3 more articles in the media than Assured Guaranty. MarketBeat recorded 7 mentions for PennyMac Financial Services and 4 mentions for Assured Guaranty. Assured Guaranty's average media sentiment score of 1.23 beat PennyMac Financial Services' score of 0.50 indicating that PennyMac Financial Services is being referred to more favorably in the media.
PennyMac Financial Services has a beta of 1.7, indicating that its share price is 70% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Assured Guaranty has a beta of 1.1, indicating that its share price is 10% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Assured Guaranty has a net margin of 57.45% compared to Assured Guaranty's net margin of 10.94%. PennyMac Financial Services' return on equity of 12.48% beat Assured Guaranty's return on equity.
Assured Guaranty received 7 more outperform votes than PennyMac Financial Services when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 67.69% of users gave Assured Guaranty an outperform vote while only 63.98% of users gave PennyMac Financial Services an outperform vote.
Summary
Assured Guaranty beats PennyMac Financial Services on 12 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding AGO and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
Skip ChartThis 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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