AON vs. AJG, MMC, BRO, WTW, ERIE, ING, PNC, USB, APO, and BNS
Should you be buying AON stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of AON include Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (AJG), Marsh & McLennan Companies (MMC), Brown & Brown (BRO), Willis Towers Watson Public (WTW), Erie Indemnity (ERIE), ING Groep (ING), The PNC Financial Services Group (PNC), U.S. Bancorp (USB), Apollo Global Management (APO), and Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS). These companies are all part of the "finance" sector.
AON (NYSE:AON) and Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (NYSE:AJG) are both large-cap finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their media sentiment, analyst recommendations, risk, profitability, community ranking, dividends, valuation, institutional ownership and earnings.
AON has a net margin of 19.17% compared to Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.'s net margin of 9.63%. Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.'s return on equity of 18.49% beat AON's return on equity.
86.1% of AON shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 85.5% of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. shares are held by institutional investors. 1.2% of AON shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.6% of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
AON has a beta of 0.86, meaning that its stock price is 14% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. has a beta of 0.68, meaning that its stock price is 32% less volatile than the S&P 500.
AON pays an annual dividend of $2.46 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.8%. Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. pays an annual dividend of $2.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.0%. AON pays out 19.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. pays out 54.1% 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.
In the previous week, Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. had 3 more articles in the media than AON. MarketBeat recorded 20 mentions for Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. and 17 mentions for AON. AON's average media sentiment score of 0.63 beat Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.'s score of 0.53 indicating that AON is being referred to more favorably in the media.
AON presently has a consensus target price of $334.69, indicating a potential upside of 8.37%. Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. has a consensus target price of $255.23, indicating a potential upside of 7.81%. Given AON's higher probable upside, equities analysts plainly believe AON is more favorable than Arthur J. Gallagher & Co..
AON has higher revenue and earnings than Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.. AON is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. received 3 more outperform votes than AON when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 60.04% of users gave Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. an outperform vote while only 56.57% of users gave AON an outperform vote.
Summary
AON and Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. 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 AON 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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