BANF vs. FULT, WSFS, WAFD, FMBI, FFBC, EWBC, WAL, FHN, CBSH, and WBS
Should you be buying BancFirst stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of BancFirst include Fulton Financial (FULT), WSFS Financial (WSFS), WaFd (WAFD), First Midwest Bancorp (FMBI), First Financial Bancorp. (FFBC), East West Bancorp (EWBC), Western Alliance Bancorporation (WAL), First Horizon (FHN), Commerce Bancshares (CBSH), and Webster Financial (WBS). These companies are all part of the "finance" sector.
Fulton Financial (NASDAQ:FULT) and BancFirst (NASDAQ:BANF) are both mid-cap finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their risk, community ranking, institutional ownership, profitability, earnings, valuation, media sentiment, analyst recommendations and dividends.
72.0% of Fulton Financial shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 51.7% of BancFirst shares are held by institutional investors. 1.1% of Fulton Financial shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 33.9% of BancFirst shares are held 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.
BancFirst has a net margin of 23.46% compared to Fulton Financial's net margin of 17.93%. BancFirst's return on equity of 13.89% beat Fulton Financial's return on equity.
Fulton Financial presently has a consensus price target of $18.40, indicating a potential upside of 4.13%. BancFirst has a consensus price target of $93.50, indicating a potential downside of 10.87%. Given Fulton Financial's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Fulton Financial is more favorable than BancFirst.
Fulton Financial has higher revenue and earnings than BancFirst. Fulton Financial is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than BancFirst, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Fulton Financial received 50 more outperform votes than BancFirst when rated by MarketBeat users. However, 53.66% of users gave BancFirst an outperform vote while only 45.84% of users gave Fulton Financial an outperform vote.
Fulton Financial has a beta of 0.74, suggesting that its stock price is 26% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, BancFirst has a beta of 1.03, suggesting that its stock price is 3% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Fulton Financial pays an annual dividend of $0.68 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.8%. BancFirst pays an annual dividend of $1.84 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.8%. Fulton Financial pays out 42.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. BancFirst pays out 30.1% 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. BancFirst has increased its dividend for 31 consecutive years.
In the previous week, BancFirst had 4 more articles in the media than Fulton Financial. MarketBeat recorded 10 mentions for BancFirst and 6 mentions for Fulton Financial. BancFirst's average media sentiment score of 0.34 beat Fulton Financial's score of 0.22 indicating that BancFirst is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Summary
BancFirst beats Fulton Financial on 13 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding BANF 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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