AGO vs. FCFS, ECPG, GDOT, MBI, ORI, RDN, MTG, ESNT, NMIH, and FFIN
Should you be buying Assured Guaranty stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Assured Guaranty include FirstCash (FCFS), Encore Capital Group (ECPG), Green Dot (GDOT), MBIA (MBI), Old Republic International (ORI), Radian Group (RDN), MGIC Investment (MTG), Essent Group (ESNT), NMI (NMIH), and First Financial Bankshares (FFIN).
Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) and FirstCash (NASDAQ:FCFS) are both mid-cap finance companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, institutional ownership, earnings, valuation, media sentiment, profitability, analyst recommendations, community ranking and risk.
92.2% of Assured Guaranty shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 80.3% of FirstCash shares are held by institutional investors. 5.1% of Assured Guaranty shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 18.1% of FirstCash shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
Assured Guaranty presently has a consensus price target of $97.00, indicating a potential upside of 24.57%. FirstCash has a consensus price target of $142.00, indicating a potential upside of 22.05%. Given Assured Guaranty's higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Assured Guaranty is more favorable than FirstCash.
Assured Guaranty pays an annual dividend of $1.24 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.6%. FirstCash pays an annual dividend of $1.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.2%. Assured Guaranty pays out 10.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. FirstCash pays out 27.3% 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 is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
Assured Guaranty has a beta of 1.14, meaning that its stock price is 14% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, FirstCash has a beta of 0.63, meaning that its stock price is 37% less volatile than the S&P 500.
In the previous week, Assured Guaranty had 10 more articles in the media than FirstCash. MarketBeat recorded 18 mentions for Assured Guaranty and 8 mentions for FirstCash. FirstCash's average media sentiment score of 0.68 beat Assured Guaranty's score of 0.30 indicating that FirstCash is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Assured Guaranty received 380 more outperform votes than FirstCash when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 67.81% of users gave Assured Guaranty an outperform vote while only 39.02% of users gave FirstCash an outperform vote.
Assured Guaranty has higher earnings, but lower revenue than FirstCash. Assured Guaranty is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than FirstCash, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Assured Guaranty has a net margin of 53.82% compared to FirstCash's net margin of 7.23%. FirstCash's return on equity of 14.73% beat Assured Guaranty's return on equity.
Summary
Assured Guaranty beats FirstCash on 12 of the 20 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.
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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