LOCO vs. WING, CNNE, XHR, HDL, KRUS, FWRG, PTLO, MRNO, TH, and MSC
Should you be buying El Pollo Loco stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of El Pollo Loco include Wingstop (WING), Cannae (CNNE), Xenia Hotels & Resorts (XHR), Super Hi International (HDL), Kura Sushi USA (KRUS), First Watch Restaurant Group (FWRG), Portillo's (PTLO), Murano Global BV (MRNO), Target Hospitality (TH), and STUDIO CITY IH (MSC). These companies are all part of the "restaurants, hotels, motels" industry.
El Pollo Loco vs. Its Competitors
Wingstop (NASDAQ:WING) and El Pollo Loco (NASDAQ:LOCO) are both retail/wholesale companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, profitability, institutional ownership, earnings, media sentiment, valuation, risk and analyst recommendations.
Wingstop has a net margin of 26.45% compared to El Pollo Loco's net margin of 5.30%. El Pollo Loco's return on equity of 9.91% beat Wingstop's return on equity.
Wingstop currently has a consensus price target of $362.26, suggesting a potential upside of 11.33%. El Pollo Loco has a consensus price target of $15.50, suggesting a potential upside of 39.89%. Given El Pollo Loco's higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe El Pollo Loco is more favorable than Wingstop.
81.3% of El Pollo Loco shares are held by institutional investors. 0.7% of Wingstop shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 3.1% of El Pollo Loco shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
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.
In the previous week, Wingstop had 12 more articles in the media than El Pollo Loco. MarketBeat recorded 13 mentions for Wingstop and 1 mentions for El Pollo Loco. Wingstop's average media sentiment score of 0.40 beat El Pollo Loco's score of -0.24 indicating that Wingstop is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Wingstop has a beta of 1.84, indicating that its share price is 84% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, El Pollo Loco has a beta of 1.11, indicating that its share price is 11% 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.
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 7/8/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff