LOCO vs. WING, HDL, CNNE, FWRG, SG, TH, MSC, KRUS, PLAY, and BALY
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), Cannae (CNNE), First Watch Restaurant Group (FWRG), Sweetgreen (SG), Target Hospitality (TH), Studio City Ih (MSC), Kura Sushi USA (KRUS), Dave & Buster's Entertainment (PLAY), and Bally's (BALY). 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 stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, risk, profitability, earnings, valuation and media sentiment.
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.
El Pollo Loco has a beta of 1.05, suggesting that its share price is 5% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Wingstop has a beta of 1.78, suggesting that its share price is 78% more volatile than the S&P 500.
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 currently has a consensus target price of $18.00, indicating a potential upside of 94.28%. Wingstop has a consensus target price of $376.92, indicating a potential upside of 54.12%. Given El Pollo Loco's higher probable upside, equities research analysts plainly believe El Pollo Loco is more favorable than Wingstop.
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 large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
In the previous week, Wingstop had 14 more articles in the media than El Pollo Loco. MarketBeat recorded 18 mentions for Wingstop and 4 mentions for El Pollo Loco. El Pollo Loco's average media sentiment score of 0.40 beat Wingstop's score of 0.27 indicating that El Pollo Loco is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Summary
Wingstop beats El Pollo Loco on 12 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.
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:LOCO) was last updated on 10/7/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff