MRBK vs. LARK, FNCB, CFBK, UBFO, HWBK, OPOF, FUNC, UBOH, VABK, and NKSH
Should you be buying Meridian stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Meridian include Landmark Bancorp (LARK), FNCB Bancorp (FNCB), CF Bankshares (CFBK), United Security Bancshares (UBFO), Hawthorn Bancshares (HWBK), Old Point Financial (OPOF), First United (FUNC), United Bancshares (UBOH), Virginia National Bankshares (VABK), and National Bankshares (NKSH). These companies are all part of the "national commercial banks" industry.
Landmark Bancorp (NASDAQ:LARK) and Meridian (NASDAQ:MRBK) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, community ranking, analyst recommendations, dividends, profitability, media sentiment, risk, earnings and valuation.
Meridian has a consensus price target of $13.00, suggesting a potential upside of 42.39%. Given Landmark Bancorp's higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Meridian is more favorable than Landmark Bancorp.
In the previous week, Meridian had 7 more articles in the media than Landmark Bancorp. MarketBeat recorded 15 mentions for Meridian and 8 mentions for Landmark Bancorp. Meridian's average media sentiment score of 1.02 beat Landmark Bancorp's score of 0.92 indicating that Landmark Bancorp is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Landmark Bancorp received 39 more outperform votes than Meridian when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 64.91% of users gave Landmark Bancorp an outperform vote while only 58.08% of users gave Meridian an outperform vote.
Landmark Bancorp pays an annual dividend of $0.84 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.3%. Meridian pays an annual dividend of $0.50 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.5%. Landmark Bancorp pays out 39.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Meridian pays out 47.6% 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. Landmark Bancorp has increased its dividend for 5 consecutive years and Meridian has increased its dividend for 1 consecutive years.
25.7% of Landmark Bancorp shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 58.6% of Meridian shares are held by institutional investors. 17.2% of Landmark Bancorp shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 14.0% of Meridian shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
Landmark Bancorp has a beta of 0.44, meaning that its stock price is 56% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Meridian has a beta of 0.7, meaning that its stock price is 30% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Landmark Bancorp has a net margin of 14.39% compared to Landmark Bancorp's net margin of 6.75%. Meridian's return on equity of 9.88% beat Landmark Bancorp's return on equity.
Meridian has higher revenue and earnings than Landmark Bancorp. Meridian is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Landmark Bancorp, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Summary
Landmark Bancorp beats Meridian on 12 of the 19 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding MRBK 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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