WTFC vs. ABCB, EWBC, HWC, SSB, ASB, CFG, FNB, RF, SNV, and WBS
Should you be buying Wintrust Financial stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Wintrust Financial include Ameris Bancorp (ABCB), East West Bancorp (EWBC), Hancock Whitney (HWC), SouthState (SSB), Associated Banc (ASB), Citizens Financial Group (CFG), F.N.B. (FNB), Regions Financial (RF), Synovus Financial (SNV), and Webster Financial (WBS). These companies are all part of the "finance" sector.
Wintrust Financial vs. Its Competitors
Ameris Bancorp (NASDAQ:ABCB) and Wintrust Financial (NASDAQ:WTFC) are both mid-cap finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, analyst recommendations, valuation, dividends, risk, profitability and media sentiment.
Ameris Bancorp presently has a consensus price target of $72.14, indicating a potential downside of 1.75%. Wintrust Financial has a consensus price target of $147.31, indicating a potential upside of 11.40%. Given Wintrust Financial's stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Wintrust Financial is more favorable than Ameris Bancorp.
Ameris Bancorp pays an annual dividend of $0.80 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.1%. Wintrust Financial pays an annual dividend of $2.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.5%. Ameris Bancorp pays out 14.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Wintrust Financial pays out 18.9% 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. Wintrust Financial has raised its dividend for 12 consecutive years. Wintrust Financial is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
Wintrust Financial has higher revenue and earnings than Ameris Bancorp. Wintrust Financial is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Ameris Bancorp, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
91.6% of Ameris Bancorp shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 93.5% of Wintrust Financial shares are owned by institutional investors. 5.4% of Ameris Bancorp shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 1.0% of Wintrust Financial shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
In the previous week, Wintrust Financial had 2 more articles in the media than Ameris Bancorp. MarketBeat recorded 12 mentions for Wintrust Financial and 10 mentions for Ameris Bancorp. Ameris Bancorp's average media sentiment score of 1.34 beat Wintrust Financial's score of 1.31 indicating that Ameris Bancorp is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Ameris Bancorp has a net margin of 21.46% compared to Wintrust Financial's net margin of 18.06%. Wintrust Financial's return on equity of 12.08% beat Ameris Bancorp's return on equity.
Ameris Bancorp has a beta of 0.97, meaning that its share price is 3% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Wintrust Financial has a beta of 0.87, meaning that its share price is 13% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Summary
Wintrust Financial beats Ameris Bancorp on 12 of the 20 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 WTFC 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.
Wintrust Financial Competitors List
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This page (NASDAQ:WTFC) was last updated on 9/16/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff
