ISTR vs. AMTB, MCB, BFST, NBN, MCBS, NBBK, EQBK, XYF, VEL, and IBCP
Should you be buying Investar stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Investar include Amerant Bancorp (AMTB), Metropolitan Bank (MCB), Business First Bancshares (BFST), Northeast Bancorp (NBN), MetroCity Bankshares (MCBS), NB Bancorp (NBBK), Equity Bancshares (EQBK), X Financial (XYF), Velocity Financial (VEL), and Independent Bank (IBCP). These companies are all part of the "banking" industry.
Investar vs. Its Competitors
Amerant Bancorp (NASDAQ:AMTB) and Investar (NASDAQ:ISTR) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, profitability, valuation, dividends, earnings, risk and media sentiment.
Amerant Bancorp has a beta of 1.31, suggesting that its stock price is 31% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Investar has a beta of 0.56, suggesting that its stock price is 44% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Amerant Bancorp currently has a consensus price target of $24.60, suggesting a potential upside of 27.93%. Investar has a consensus price target of $27.00, suggesting a potential upside of 22.62%. Given Amerant Bancorp's higher probable upside, research analysts plainly believe Amerant Bancorp is more favorable than Investar.
42.1% of Amerant Bancorp shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 50.2% of Investar shares are owned by institutional investors. 5.4% of Amerant Bancorp shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 8.8% of Investar shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
Amerant Bancorp pays an annual dividend of $0.36 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.9%. Investar pays an annual dividend of $0.44 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.0%. Amerant Bancorp pays out -60.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Investar pays out 20.1% 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. Investar has increased its dividend for 10 consecutive years. Investar is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
In the previous week, Investar had 3 more articles in the media than Amerant Bancorp. MarketBeat recorded 4 mentions for Investar and 1 mentions for Amerant Bancorp. Amerant Bancorp's average media sentiment score of 1.67 beat Investar's score of 0.83 indicating that Amerant Bancorp is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Investar has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Amerant Bancorp. Amerant Bancorp is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Investar, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Investar has a net margin of 13.99% compared to Amerant Bancorp's net margin of -8.38%. Investar's return on equity of 8.60% beat Amerant Bancorp's return on equity.
Summary
Investar beats Amerant Bancorp on 12 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 ISTR 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.
Investar Competitors List
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This page (NASDAQ:ISTR) was last updated on 7/7/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff
