EWBC vs. CBSH, WAL, BPOP, WTFC, SSB, PB, HOMB, UBSI, FFIN, and GBCI
Should you be buying East West Bancorp stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of East West Bancorp include Commerce Bancshares (CBSH), Western Alliance Bancorporation (WAL), Popular (BPOP), Wintrust Financial (WTFC), SouthState (SSB), Prosperity Bancshares (PB), Home Bancshares, Inc. (Conway, AR) (HOMB), United Bankshares (UBSI), First Financial Bankshares (FFIN), and Glacier Bancorp (GBCI). These companies are all part of the "regional banks" industry.
East West Bancorp (NASDAQ:EWBC) and Commerce Bancshares (NASDAQ:CBSH) are both mid-cap finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their media sentiment, institutional ownership, community ranking, analyst recommendations, valuation, profitability, earnings, dividends and risk.
89.5% of East West Bancorp shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 70.3% of Commerce Bancshares shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.9% of East West Bancorp shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 3.2% of Commerce Bancshares shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
East West Bancorp has higher revenue and earnings than Commerce Bancshares. East West Bancorp is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Commerce Bancshares, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
East West Bancorp has a beta of 1.39, meaning that its share price is 39% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Commerce Bancshares has a beta of 0.79, meaning that its share price is 21% less volatile than the S&P 500.
East West Bancorp has a net margin of 29.11% compared to Commerce Bancshares' net margin of 23.33%. East West Bancorp's return on equity of 18.47% beat Commerce Bancshares' return on equity.
East West Bancorp currently has a consensus price target of $83.15, suggesting a potential upside of 15.81%. Commerce Bancshares has a consensus price target of $55.00, suggesting a potential upside of 3.58%. Given East West Bancorp's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe East West Bancorp is more favorable than Commerce Bancshares.
East West Bancorp received 233 more outperform votes than Commerce Bancshares when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 64.39% of users gave East West Bancorp an outperform vote while only 45.74% of users gave Commerce Bancshares an outperform vote.
In the previous week, Commerce Bancshares had 24 more articles in the media than East West Bancorp. MarketBeat recorded 35 mentions for Commerce Bancshares and 11 mentions for East West Bancorp. Commerce Bancshares' average media sentiment score of 0.67 beat East West Bancorp's score of 0.44 indicating that Commerce Bancshares is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
East West Bancorp pays an annual dividend of $2.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.1%. Commerce Bancshares pays an annual dividend of $1.08 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.0%. East West Bancorp pays out 26.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Commerce Bancshares 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. East West Bancorp is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
Summary
East West Bancorp beats Commerce Bancshares on 15 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding EWBC 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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