Aaron's (AAN) Competitors

Aaron's (NYSE:AAN) and Haverty Furniture Companies (NYSE:HVT) are both small-cap consumer discretionary companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, media sentiment, community ranking, profitability, institutional ownership, dividends, earnings, analyst recommendations and valuation.

Do institutionals & insiders believe in AAN or HVT?

92.0% of Aaron's shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 80.6% of Haverty Furniture Companies shares are owned by institutional investors. 3.5% of Aaron's shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 8.9% of Haverty Furniture Companies shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Is AAN or HVT a better dividend stock?

Aaron's pays an annual dividend of $0.50 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.0%. Haverty Furniture Companies pays an annual dividend of $1.28 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.1%. Aaron's pays out -63.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Haverty Furniture Companies pays out 46.5% 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.

Which has better valuation & earnings, AAN or HVT?

Haverty Furniture Companies has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Aaron's. Aaron's is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Haverty Furniture Companies, 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
Aaron's	$2.14B	0.15	$2.82M	-$0.79	-12.74
Haverty Furniture Companies	$862.13M	0.48	$56.32M	$2.75	9.14

Do analysts rate AAN or HVT?

Aaron's presently has a consensus price target of $9.46, indicating a potential downside of 6.01%. Haverty Furniture Companies has a consensus price target of $45.00, indicating a potential upside of 79.07%. Given Haverty Furniture Companies' stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Haverty Furniture Companies is more favorable than Aaron's.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Aaron's	0 Sell rating(s)	6 Hold rating(s)	1 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.14
Haverty Furniture Companies	0 Sell rating(s)	0 Hold rating(s)	1 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	3.00

Does the media prefer AAN or HVT?

In the previous week, Aaron's had 4 more articles in the media than Haverty Furniture Companies. MarketBeat recorded 6 mentions for Aaron's and 2 mentions for Haverty Furniture Companies. Aaron's' average media sentiment score of 0.28 beat Haverty Furniture Companies' score of 0.00 indicating that Aaron's is being referred to more favorably in the media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
Aaron's	2 Very Positive mention(s)	0 Positive mention(s)	4 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Neutral
Haverty Furniture Companies	1 Very Positive mention(s)	0 Positive mention(s)	1 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Neutral

Does the MarketBeat Community prefer AAN or HVT?

Aaron's received 143 more outperform votes than Haverty Furniture Companies when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 68.85% of users gave Aaron's an outperform vote while only 64.27% of users gave Haverty Furniture Companies an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
Aaron's	Outperform Votes 537 68.85%	Underperform Votes 243 31.15%
Haverty Furniture Companies	Outperform Votes 394 64.27%	Underperform Votes 219 35.73%

Is AAN or HVT more profitable?

Haverty Furniture Companies has a net margin of 4.91% compared to Aaron's' net margin of -2.06%. Haverty Furniture Companies' return on equity of 12.58% beat Aaron's' return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Aaron's	-2.06%	-2.08%	-0.79%
Haverty Furniture Companies	4.91%	12.58%	5.96%

Which has more volatility & risk, AAN or HVT?

Aaron's has a beta of 1.43, suggesting that its share price is 43% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Haverty Furniture Companies has a beta of 1.45, suggesting that its share price is 45% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Haverty Furniture Companies beats Aaron's on 12 of the 19 factors compared between the two stocks.