PFSI vs. LAZ, UBSI, AGO, ESGR, FFIN, MAIN, AEL, RDN, GBCI, and WTM
Should you be buying PennyMac Financial Services stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of PennyMac Financial Services include Lazard (LAZ), United Bankshares (UBSI), Assured Guaranty (AGO), Enstar Group (ESGR), First Financial Bankshares (FFIN), Main Street Capital (MAIN), American Equity Investment Life (AEL), Radian Group (RDN), Glacier Bancorp (GBCI), and White Mountains Insurance Group (WTM). These companies are all part of the "finance" sector.
PennyMac Financial Services (NYSE:PFSI) and Lazard (NYSE:LAZ) are both mid-cap finance companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, media sentiment, earnings, institutional ownership, dividends, profitability, community ranking, risk and valuation.
PennyMac Financial Services currently has a consensus price target of $97.75, indicating a potential upside of 7.61%. Lazard has a consensus price target of $45.67, indicating a potential upside of 16.94%. Given Lazard's higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Lazard is more favorable than PennyMac Financial Services.
PennyMac Financial Services has a beta of 1.68, suggesting that its stock price is 68% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Lazard has a beta of 1.46, suggesting that its stock price is 46% more volatile than the S&P 500.
57.9% of PennyMac Financial Services shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 54.8% of Lazard shares are owned by institutional investors. 16.6% of PennyMac Financial Services shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 3.1% of Lazard shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
PennyMac Financial Services has a net margin of 10.94% compared to Lazard's net margin of -0.63%. Lazard's return on equity of 37.27% beat PennyMac Financial Services' return on equity.
In the previous week, Lazard had 9 more articles in the media than PennyMac Financial Services. MarketBeat recorded 12 mentions for Lazard and 3 mentions for PennyMac Financial Services. PennyMac Financial Services' average media sentiment score of 0.51 beat Lazard's score of 0.21 indicating that PennyMac Financial Services is being referred to more favorably in the media.
PennyMac Financial Services has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Lazard. Lazard 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%. Lazard pays an annual dividend of $2.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.1%. PennyMac Financial Services pays out 27.8% 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.
Lazard received 230 more outperform votes than PennyMac Financial Services when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 64.61% of users gave Lazard an outperform vote while only 64.19% of users gave PennyMac Financial Services an outperform vote.
Summary
PennyMac Financial Services beats Lazard on 11 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding PFSI 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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