Gladstone Investment (GAIN) Competitors

Gladstone Investment (NASDAQ:GAIN) and Prospect Capital (NASDAQ:PSEC) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, earnings, media sentiment, valuation, institutional ownership, dividends, community ranking, analyst recommendations and profitability.

Does the MarketBeat Community prefer GAIN or PSEC?

Gladstone Investment received 48 more outperform votes than Prospect Capital when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 60.66% of users gave Gladstone Investment an outperform vote while only 51.45% of users gave Prospect Capital an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
Gladstone Investment	Outperform Votes 367 60.66%	Underperform Votes 238 39.34%
Prospect Capital	Outperform Votes 319 51.45%	Underperform Votes 301 48.55%

Do insiders and institutionals hold more shares of GAIN or PSEC?

11.9% of Gladstone Investment shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 9.1% of Prospect Capital shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.5% of Gladstone Investment shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 28.3% of Prospect Capital shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Do analysts prefer GAIN or PSEC?

Gladstone Investment presently has a consensus price target of $13.50, suggesting a potential downside of 5.06%. Prospect Capital has a consensus price target of $3.00, suggesting a potential downside of 10.98%. Given Gladstone Investment's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Gladstone Investment is more favorable than Prospect Capital.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Gladstone Investment	0 Sell rating(s)	3 Hold rating(s)	0 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.00
Prospect Capital	1 Sell rating(s)	0 Hold rating(s)	0 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	1.00

Which has preferable earnings and valuation, GAIN or PSEC?

Prospect Capital has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Gladstone Investment. Prospect Capital is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Gladstone Investment, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Company	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Gladstone Investment	$61.63M	8.50	$85.31M	$1.78	7.99
Prospect Capital	-$182.78M	-8.22	$262.83M	-$0.86	-3.92

Is GAIN or PSEC a better dividend stock?

Gladstone Investment pays an annual dividend of $0.96 per share and has a dividend yield of 6.8%. Prospect Capital pays an annual dividend of $0.54 per share and has a dividend yield of 16.0%. Gladstone Investment pays out 53.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Prospect Capital pays out -62.8% 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. Prospect Capital is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Is GAIN or PSEC more profitable?

Gladstone Investment has a net margin of 78.02% compared to Prospect Capital's net margin of 1.18%. Prospect Capital's return on equity of 12.31% beat Gladstone Investment's return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Gladstone Investment	78.02%	7.17%	3.61%
Prospect Capital	1.18%	12.31%	5.79%

Which has more risk & volatility, GAIN or PSEC?

Gladstone Investment has a beta of 0.89, meaning that its share price is 11% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Prospect Capital has a beta of 0.85, meaning that its share price is 15% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Does the media refer more to GAIN or PSEC?

In the previous week, Prospect Capital had 5 more articles in the media than Gladstone Investment. MarketBeat recorded 9 mentions for Prospect Capital and 4 mentions for Gladstone Investment. Gladstone Investment's average media sentiment score of 1.15 beat Prospect Capital's score of 0.52 indicating that Gladstone Investment is being referred to more favorably in the media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
Gladstone Investment	2 Very Positive mention(s)	0 Positive mention(s)	0 Neutral mention(s)	1 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive
Prospect Capital	1 Very Positive mention(s)	3 Positive mention(s)	3 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive

Summary

Gladstone Investment beats Prospect Capital on 12 of the 19 factors compared between the two stocks.