LOCO vs. WING, HDL, FWRG, SG, CNNE, KRUS, TH, PLAY, MSC, and PTLO
Should you be buying El Pollo Loco stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of El Pollo Loco include Wingstop (WING), Super Hi International (HDL), First Watch Restaurant Group (FWRG), Sweetgreen (SG), Cannae (CNNE), Kura Sushi USA (KRUS), Target Hospitality (TH), Dave & Buster's Entertainment (PLAY), Studio City Ih (MSC), and Portillo's (PTLO). These companies are all part of the "restaurants, hotels, motels" industry.
El Pollo Loco vs. Its Competitors
El Pollo Loco (NASDAQ:LOCO) and Wingstop (NASDAQ:WING) are both retail/wholesale companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, earnings, media sentiment, profitability, dividends, valuation, analyst recommendations and institutional ownership.
Wingstop has higher revenue and earnings than El Pollo Loco. El Pollo Loco is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Wingstop, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
El Pollo Loco presently has a consensus price target of $18.00, suggesting a potential upside of 79.82%. Wingstop has a consensus price target of $380.52, suggesting a potential upside of 45.71%. Given El Pollo Loco's higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe El Pollo Loco is more favorable than Wingstop.
Wingstop has a net margin of 25.61% compared to El Pollo Loco's net margin of 5.15%. El Pollo Loco's return on equity of 9.83% beat Wingstop's return on equity.
81.3% of El Pollo Loco shares are owned by institutional investors. 3.1% of El Pollo Loco shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.7% of Wingstop shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
In the previous week, Wingstop had 15 more articles in the media than El Pollo Loco. MarketBeat recorded 22 mentions for Wingstop and 7 mentions for El Pollo Loco. Wingstop's average media sentiment score of 0.64 beat El Pollo Loco's score of 0.37 indicating that Wingstop is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
El Pollo Loco has a beta of 1.08, suggesting that its share price is 8% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Wingstop has a beta of 1.87, suggesting that its share price is 87% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Summary
Wingstop beats El Pollo Loco on 13 of the 17 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 LOCO 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.
El Pollo Loco Competitors List
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This page (NASDAQ:LOCO) was last updated on 9/17/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff
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