AON vs. MMC, AJG, BRO, EHTH, WTW, ERIE, RYAN, EQH, ACT, and CRVL
Should you be buying AON stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of AON include Marsh & McLennan Companies (MMC), Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (AJG), Brown & Brown (BRO), eHealth (EHTH), Willis Towers Watson Public (WTW), Erie Indemnity (ERIE), Ryan Specialty (RYAN), Equitable (EQH), Enact (ACT), and CorVel (CRVL). These companies are all part of the "insurance agents, brokers, & service" industry.
Marsh & McLennan Companies (NYSE:MMC) and AON (NYSE:AON) are both large-cap finance companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their community ranking, profitability, valuation, institutional ownership, dividends, risk, media sentiment, analyst recommendations and earnings.
Marsh & McLennan Companies has a beta of 0.94, suggesting that its stock price is 6% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, AON has a beta of 0.91, suggesting that its stock price is 9% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Marsh & McLennan Companies presently has a consensus price target of $214.25, suggesting a potential downside of 1.71%. AON has a consensus price target of $321.36, suggesting a potential downside of 0.39%. Given Marsh & McLennan Companies' higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe AON is more favorable than Marsh & McLennan Companies.
Marsh & McLennan Companies pays an annual dividend of $2.84 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.3%. AON pays an annual dividend of $2.70 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.8%. Marsh & McLennan Companies pays out 36.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. AON pays out 21.2% 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. Marsh & McLennan Companies has raised its dividend for 15 consecutive years and AON has raised its dividend for 13 consecutive years. Marsh & McLennan Companies is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
In the previous week, Marsh & McLennan Companies had 5 more articles in the media than AON. MarketBeat recorded 22 mentions for Marsh & McLennan Companies and 17 mentions for AON. Marsh & McLennan Companies' average media sentiment score of 0.55 beat AON's score of 0.50 indicating that AON is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Marsh & McLennan Companies has higher revenue and earnings than AON. AON is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Marsh & McLennan Companies, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
88.0% of Marsh & McLennan Companies shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 86.1% of AON shares are held by institutional investors. 0.3% of Marsh & McLennan Companies shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.2% of AON shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
AON has a net margin of 19.04% compared to AON's net margin of 16.97%. AON's return on equity of 33.92% beat Marsh & McLennan Companies' return on equity.
AON received 37 more outperform votes than Marsh & McLennan Companies when rated by MarketBeat users. However, 62.52% of users gave Marsh & McLennan Companies an outperform vote while only 56.03% of users gave AON an outperform vote.
Summary
Marsh & McLennan Companies beats AON on 13 of the 21 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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