EBC vs. ABCB, BANR, CATY, DCOM, FRME, OBK, OCFC, SBCF, SSB, and WSFS
Should you be buying Eastern Bankshares stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Eastern Bankshares include Ameris Bancorp (ABCB), Banner (BANR), Cathay General Bancorp (CATY), Dime Community Bancshares (DCOM), First Merchants (FRME), Origin Bancorp (OBK), OceanFirst Financial (OCFC), Seacoast Banking Corporation of Florida (SBCF), SouthState (SSB), and WSFS Financial (WSFS). These companies are all part of the "finance" sector.
Eastern Bankshares vs. Its Competitors
Eastern Bankshares (NASDAQ:EBC) and Ameris Bancorp (NASDAQ:ABCB) are both mid-cap finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, profitability, dividends, valuation, media sentiment, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership and risk.
Ameris Bancorp has higher revenue and earnings than Eastern Bankshares. Eastern Bankshares is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Ameris Bancorp, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Ameris Bancorp has a net margin of 21.46% compared to Eastern Bankshares' net margin of -6.49%. Ameris Bancorp's return on equity of 9.57% beat Eastern Bankshares' return on equity.
Eastern Bankshares currently has a consensus target price of $20.00, indicating a potential upside of 10.86%. Ameris Bancorp has a consensus target price of $72.14, indicating a potential downside of 4.84%. Given Eastern Bankshares' stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Eastern Bankshares is more favorable than Ameris Bancorp.
71.7% of Eastern Bankshares shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 91.6% of Ameris Bancorp shares are held by institutional investors. 1.1% of Eastern Bankshares shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 5.4% of Ameris Bancorp shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
In the previous week, Ameris Bancorp had 3 more articles in the media than Eastern Bankshares. MarketBeat recorded 8 mentions for Ameris Bancorp and 5 mentions for Eastern Bankshares. Ameris Bancorp's average media sentiment score of 1.32 beat Eastern Bankshares' score of 1.03 indicating that Ameris Bancorp is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Eastern Bankshares pays an annual dividend of $0.52 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.9%. Ameris Bancorp pays an annual dividend of $0.80 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.1%. Eastern Bankshares pays out -167.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Ameris Bancorp pays out 14.1% 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. Eastern Bankshares has raised its dividend for 5 consecutive years. Eastern Bankshares is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
Eastern Bankshares has a beta of 0.95, indicating that its stock price is 5% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Ameris Bancorp has a beta of 0.97, indicating that its stock price is 3% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Summary
Ameris Bancorp beats Eastern Bankshares on 13 of the 19 factors compared between the two stocks.
Get Eastern Bankshares News Delivered to You Automatically
Sign up to receive the latest news and ratings for EBC and its competitors with MarketBeat's FREE daily newsletter.
New MarketBeat Followers Over Time
This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding EBC and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
Media 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.
Eastern Bankshares Competitors List
Related Companies and Tools
This page (NASDAQ:EBC) was last updated on 9/19/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff
