News (NWS) Competitors

News (NASDAQ:NWS) and Pearson (NYSE:PSO) are both consumer discretionary companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, risk, community ranking, media sentiment, valuation, institutional ownership, profitability, analyst recommendations and dividends.

Does the MarketBeat Community believe in NWS or PSO?

Pearson received 105 more outperform votes than News when rated by MarketBeat users. However, 60.83% of users gave News an outperform vote while only 48.58% of users gave Pearson an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
News	Outperform Votes 306 60.83%	Underperform Votes 197 39.17%
Pearson	Outperform Votes 411 48.58%	Underperform Votes 435 51.42%

Is NWS or PSO a better dividend stock?

News pays an annual dividend of $0.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.6%. Pearson pays an annual dividend of $0.44 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.0%. News pays out 23.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Pearson pays out 46.8% 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.

Do insiders & institutionals hold more shares of NWS or PSO?

14.6% of News shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 2.1% of Pearson shares are owned by institutional investors. 13.7% of News shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.1% of Pearson 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.

Is NWS or PSO more profitable?

News has a net margin of 4.22% compared to Pearson's net margin of 0.00%. News' return on equity of 5.31% beat Pearson's return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
News	4.22%	5.31%	2.89%
Pearson	N/A	N/A	N/A

Do analysts prefer NWS or PSO?

Pearson has a consensus target price of $18.00, indicating a potential upside of 21.46%. Given Pearson's higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Pearson is more favorable than News.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
News	0 Sell rating(s)	0 Hold rating(s)	0 Buy rating(s)	2 Strong Buy rating(s)	4.00
Pearson	0 Sell rating(s)	0 Hold rating(s)	1 Buy rating(s)	1 Strong Buy rating(s)	3.50

Which has preferable valuation and earnings, NWS or PSO?

Pearson has lower revenue, but higher earnings than News. Pearson is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than News, 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
News	$10.27B	1.76	$266M	$0.86	37.15
Pearson	$3.55B	2.76	$470.19M	$0.94	15.77

Which has more risk and volatility, NWS or PSO?

News has a beta of 1.23, indicating that its stock price is 23% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Pearson has a beta of 0.6, indicating that its stock price is 40% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Does the media refer more to NWS or PSO?

In the previous week, News had 2 more articles in the media than Pearson. MarketBeat recorded 10 mentions for News and 8 mentions for Pearson. News' average media sentiment score of 0.78 beat Pearson's score of 0.48 indicating that News is being referred to more favorably in the media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
News	3 Very Positive mention(s)	6 Positive mention(s)	0 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive
Pearson	6 Very Positive mention(s)	1 Positive mention(s)	0 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	1 Very Negative mention(s)	Neutral

Summary

News beats Pearson on 14 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.