Yum! Brands (YUM) Competitors

Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM) and Darden Restaurants (NYSE:DRI) are both large-cap retail/wholesale companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, community ranking, risk, dividends, earnings, valuation, media sentiment, profitability and analyst recommendations.

Does the MarketBeat Community favor YUM or DRI?

Darden Restaurants received 57 more outperform votes than Yum! Brands when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 66.55% of users gave Darden Restaurants an outperform vote while only 65.34% of users gave Yum! Brands an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
Yum! Brands	Outperform Votes 1067 65.34%	Underperform Votes 566 34.66%
Darden Restaurants	Outperform Votes 1124 66.55%	Underperform Votes 565 33.45%

Do analysts rate YUM or DRI?

Yum! Brands currently has a consensus target price of $144.75, suggesting a potential upside of 6.96%. Darden Restaurants has a consensus target price of $178.85, suggesting a potential upside of 18.33%. Given Darden Restaurants' stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Darden Restaurants is more favorable than Yum! Brands.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Yum! Brands	0 Sell rating(s)	9 Hold rating(s)	6 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.40
Darden Restaurants	0 Sell rating(s)	4 Hold rating(s)	15 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.79

Do insiders & institutionals hold more shares of YUM or DRI?

82.4% of Yum! Brands shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 93.6% of Darden Restaurants shares are held by institutional investors. 0.3% of Yum! Brands shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.9% of Darden Restaurants shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Which has stronger valuation & earnings, YUM or DRI?

Yum! Brands has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Darden Restaurants. Darden Restaurants is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Yum! Brands, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Company	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Yum! Brands	$7.08B	5.38	$1.60B	$5.59	24.21
Darden Restaurants	$10.49B	1.72	$981.90M	$8.53	17.72

Is YUM or DRI more profitable?

Yum! Brands has a net margin of 22.57% compared to Darden Restaurants' net margin of 9.24%. Darden Restaurants' return on equity of 49.94% beat Yum! Brands' return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Yum! Brands	22.57%	-17.76%	24.72%
Darden Restaurants	9.24%	49.94%	9.68%

Is YUM or DRI a better dividend stock?

Yum! Brands pays an annual dividend of $2.68 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.0%. Darden Restaurants pays an annual dividend of $5.24 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.5%. Yum! Brands pays out 47.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Darden Restaurants pays out 61.4% 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.

Does the media prefer YUM or DRI?

In the previous week, Yum! Brands had 22 more articles in the media than Darden Restaurants. MarketBeat recorded 37 mentions for Yum! Brands and 15 mentions for Darden Restaurants. Darden Restaurants' average media sentiment score of 0.80 beat Yum! Brands' score of 0.50 indicating that Darden Restaurants is being referred to more favorably in the news media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
Yum! Brands	10 Very Positive mention(s)	2 Positive mention(s)	15 Neutral mention(s)	6 Negative mention(s)	2 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive
Darden Restaurants	8 Very Positive mention(s)	2 Positive mention(s)	1 Neutral mention(s)	2 Negative mention(s)	1 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive

Which has more volatility & risk, YUM or DRI?

Yum! Brands has a beta of 1.1, indicating that its share price is 10% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Darden Restaurants has a beta of 1.25, indicating that its share price is 25% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Darden Restaurants beats Yum! Brands on 13 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.