AGO vs. FCFS, PFSI, CIT, RDN, NMIH, FNF, CNA, ORI, RLI, and AXS
Should you be buying Assured Guaranty stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Assured Guaranty include FirstCash (FCFS), PennyMac Financial Services (PFSI), CIT Group (CIT), Radian Group (RDN), NMI (NMIH), Fidelity National Financial (FNF), CNA Financial (CNA), Old Republic International (ORI), RLI (RLI), and AXIS Capital (AXS).
Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) and FirstCash (NASDAQ:FCFS) are both mid-cap finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, community ranking, valuation, dividends, institutional ownership, risk, earnings, analyst recommendations and media sentiment.
92.2% of Assured Guaranty shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 80.3% of FirstCash shares are held by institutional investors. 5.1% of Assured Guaranty shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 14.8% of FirstCash shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
Assured Guaranty has a beta of 1.11, meaning that its stock price is 11% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, FirstCash has a beta of 0.62, meaning that its stock price is 38% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Assured Guaranty has higher earnings, but lower revenue than FirstCash. Assured Guaranty is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than FirstCash, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
In the previous week, FirstCash had 9 more articles in the media than Assured Guaranty. MarketBeat recorded 15 mentions for FirstCash and 6 mentions for Assured Guaranty. FirstCash's average media sentiment score of 1.13 beat Assured Guaranty's score of 0.95 indicating that FirstCash is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Assured Guaranty received 382 more outperform votes than FirstCash when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 67.80% of users gave Assured Guaranty an outperform vote while only 38.10% of users gave FirstCash an outperform vote.
Assured Guaranty has a net margin of 57.45% compared to FirstCash's net margin of 7.23%. FirstCash's return on equity of 14.73% beat Assured Guaranty's return on equity.
Assured Guaranty pays an annual dividend of $1.24 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.5%. FirstCash pays an annual dividend of $1.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.3%. Assured Guaranty pays out 9.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. FirstCash pays out 27.3% 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. Assured Guaranty is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
Assured Guaranty currently has a consensus price target of $101.33, suggesting a potential upside of 23.65%. FirstCash has a consensus price target of $142.00, suggesting a potential upside of 26.93%. Given FirstCash's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe FirstCash is more favorable than Assured Guaranty.
Summary
Assured Guaranty and FirstCash tied by winning 10 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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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.
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.
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