ESSA vs. OBK, CFFN, TREE, TRST, NFBK, HBCP, FFIC, KRNY, WSBF, and HMST
Should you be buying ESSA Bancorp stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of ESSA Bancorp include Origin Bancorp (OBK), Capitol Federal Financial (CFFN), LendingTree (TREE), TrustCo Bank Corp NY (TRST), Northfield Bancorp (NFBK), Home Bancorp (HBCP), Flushing Financial (FFIC), Kearny Financial (KRNY), Waterstone Financial (WSBF), and HomeStreet (HMST). These companies are all part of the "finance" sector.
ESSA Bancorp vs. Its Competitors
ESSA Bancorp (NASDAQ:ESSA) and Origin Bancorp (NASDAQ:OBK) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, earnings, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, profitability, dividends, risk and media sentiment.
ESSA Bancorp has a beta of 0.43, indicating that its stock price is 57% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Origin Bancorp has a beta of 0.83, indicating that its stock price is 17% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Origin Bancorp has higher revenue and earnings than ESSA Bancorp. ESSA Bancorp is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Origin Bancorp, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
ESSA Bancorp pays an annual dividend of $0.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.9%. Origin Bancorp pays an annual dividend of $0.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.7%. ESSA Bancorp pays out 38.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Origin Bancorp pays out 26.8% 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.
In the previous week, Origin Bancorp had 11 more articles in the media than ESSA Bancorp. MarketBeat recorded 11 mentions for Origin Bancorp and 0 mentions for ESSA Bancorp. Origin Bancorp's average media sentiment score of 1.01 beat ESSA Bancorp's score of -0.69 indicating that Origin Bancorp is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
ESSA Bancorp has a net margin of 13.20% compared to Origin Bancorp's net margin of 12.34%. Origin Bancorp's return on equity of 6.91% beat ESSA Bancorp's return on equity.
54.2% of ESSA Bancorp shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 54.7% of Origin Bancorp shares are owned by institutional investors. 7.5% of ESSA Bancorp shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 6.4% of Origin Bancorp 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.
Origin Bancorp has a consensus target price of $43.20, suggesting a potential upside of 22.25%. Given Origin Bancorp's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Origin Bancorp is more favorable than ESSA Bancorp.
Summary
Origin Bancorp beats ESSA Bancorp on 14 of the 18 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 ESSA 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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This page (NASDAQ:ESSA) was last updated on 8/2/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff