CSWC vs. ARCC, MFIC, NMFC, OCSL, PFLT, PNNT, SLRC, FSK, MAIN, and TSLX
Should you be buying Capital Southwest stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Capital Southwest include Ares Capital (ARCC), MidCap Financial Investment (MFIC), New Mountain Finance (NMFC), Oaktree Specialty Lending (OCSL), PennantPark Floating Rate Capital (PFLT), PennantPark Investment (PNNT), SLR Investment (SLRC), FS KKR Capital (FSK), Main Street Capital (MAIN), and Sixth Street Specialty Lending (TSLX). These companies are all part of the "finance" sector.
Capital Southwest vs. Its Competitors
Ares Capital (NASDAQ:ARCC) and Capital Southwest (NASDAQ:CSWC) are both finance companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their media sentiment, dividends, analyst recommendations, valuation, profitability, institutional ownership, risk and earnings.
27.4% of Ares Capital shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 23.4% of Capital Southwest shares are held by institutional investors. 0.5% of Ares Capital shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 2.8% of Capital Southwest shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
Ares Capital has a net margin of 44.94% compared to Capital Southwest's net margin of 39.95%. Capital Southwest's return on equity of 14.17% beat Ares Capital's return on equity.
Ares Capital has a beta of 0.7, suggesting that its share price is 30% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Capital Southwest has a beta of 0.98, suggesting that its share price is 2% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Ares Capital presently has a consensus price target of $22.86, suggesting a potential upside of 2.41%. Capital Southwest has a consensus price target of $24.30, suggesting a potential upside of 7.81%. Given Capital Southwest's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Capital Southwest is more favorable than Ares Capital.
Ares Capital pays an annual dividend of $1.92 per share and has a dividend yield of 8.6%. Capital Southwest pays an annual dividend of $2.32 per share and has a dividend yield of 10.3%. Ares Capital pays out 93.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Capital Southwest pays out 140.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Capital Southwest has raised its dividend for 2 consecutive years. Capital Southwest is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
Ares Capital has higher revenue and earnings than Capital Southwest. Ares Capital is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Capital Southwest, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
In the previous week, Ares Capital had 16 more articles in the media than Capital Southwest. MarketBeat recorded 17 mentions for Ares Capital and 1 mentions for Capital Southwest. Ares Capital's average media sentiment score of 1.21 beat Capital Southwest's score of 0.83 indicating that Ares Capital is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Summary
Capital Southwest beats Ares Capital on 10 of the 19 factors compared between the two stocks.
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New MarketBeat Followers Over Time
This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding CSWC and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
Skip ChartMedia Sentiment Over Time
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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Capital Southwest Competitors List
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This page (NASDAQ:CSWC) was last updated on 8/24/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff