AGO vs. WTFC, AIG, AMP, CNO, HIG, L, MET, ORI, PFG, and PRU
Should you be buying Assured Guaranty stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Assured Guaranty include Wintrust Financial (WTFC), American International Group (AIG), Ameriprise Financial (AMP), CNO Financial Group (CNO), The Hartford Insurance Group (HIG), Loews (L), MetLife (MET), Old Republic International (ORI), Principal Financial Group (PFG), and Prudential Financial (PRU). These companies are all part of the "finance" sector.
Assured Guaranty vs. Its Competitors
Wintrust Financial (NASDAQ:WTFC) and Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) are both mid-cap finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their media sentiment, valuation, profitability, dividends, analyst recommendations, earnings, institutional ownership and risk.
Wintrust Financial presently has a consensus price target of $148.64, suggesting a potential upside of 13.99%. Assured Guaranty has a consensus price target of $98.50, suggesting a potential upside of 16.78%. Given Assured Guaranty's higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Assured Guaranty is more favorable than Wintrust Financial.
Assured Guaranty has a net margin of 44.53% compared to Wintrust Financial's net margin of 18.06%. Wintrust Financial's return on equity of 12.08% beat Assured Guaranty's return on equity.
Wintrust Financial pays an annual dividend of $2.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.5%. Assured Guaranty pays an annual dividend of $1.36 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.6%. Wintrust Financial pays out 18.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Assured Guaranty pays out 15.0% 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 increased its dividend for 12 consecutive years and Assured Guaranty has increased its dividend for 7 consecutive years. Assured Guaranty is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
In the previous week, Wintrust Financial had 3 more articles in the media than Assured Guaranty. MarketBeat recorded 4 mentions for Wintrust Financial and 1 mentions for Assured Guaranty. Wintrust Financial's average media sentiment score of 0.71 beat Assured Guaranty's score of 0.59 indicating that Wintrust Financial is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Wintrust Financial has higher revenue and earnings than Assured Guaranty. Assured Guaranty is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Wintrust Financial, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
93.5% of Wintrust Financial shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 92.2% of Assured Guaranty shares are held by institutional investors. 1.0% of Wintrust Financial shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 5.1% of Assured Guaranty shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
Wintrust Financial has a beta of 0.83, indicating that its stock price is 17% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Assured Guaranty has a beta of 0.92, indicating that its stock price is 8% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Summary
Wintrust Financial beats Assured Guaranty 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 AGO 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 NYSE 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.
Assured Guaranty Competitors List
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This page (NYSE:AGO) was last updated on 10/6/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff
