BKU vs. EBC, CLBK, AX, PFS, BRKL, CFFN, FRME, AGM, SBCF, and PLMR
Should you be buying BankUnited stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of BankUnited include Eastern Bankshares (EBC), Columbia Financial (CLBK), Axos Financial (AX), Provident Financial Services (PFS), Brookline Bancorp (BRKL), Capitol Federal Financial (CFFN), First Merchants (FRME), Federal Agricultural Mortgage (AGM), Seacoast Banking Co. of Florida (SBCF), and Palomar (PLMR). These companies are all part of the "finance" sector.
Eastern Bankshares (NASDAQ:EBC) and BankUnited (NYSE:BKU) are both mid-cap finance companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, analyst recommendations, community ranking, profitability, earnings, risk, media sentiment, institutional ownership and valuation.
Eastern Bankshares has a beta of 0.85, suggesting that its stock price is 15% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, BankUnited has a beta of 1.36, suggesting that its stock price is 36% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Eastern Bankshares has higher earnings, but lower revenue than BankUnited. Eastern Bankshares is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than BankUnited, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
71.7% of Eastern Bankshares shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 99.7% of BankUnited shares are held by institutional investors. 1.2% of Eastern Bankshares shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.2% of BankUnited shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
In the previous week, BankUnited had 5 more articles in the media than Eastern Bankshares. MarketBeat recorded 10 mentions for BankUnited and 5 mentions for Eastern Bankshares. BankUnited's average media sentiment score of 0.95 beat Eastern Bankshares' score of 0.42 indicating that Eastern Bankshares is being referred to more favorably in the media.
BankUnited has a net margin of 8.71% compared to BankUnited's net margin of 0.00%. Eastern Bankshares' return on equity of 8.06% beat BankUnited's return on equity.
BankUnited received 373 more outperform votes than Eastern Bankshares when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 56.59% of users gave BankUnited an outperform vote while only 48.89% of users gave Eastern Bankshares an outperform vote.
Eastern Bankshares pays an annual dividend of $0.44 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.3%. BankUnited pays an annual dividend of $1.16 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.2%. Eastern Bankshares pays out 31.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. BankUnited pays out 50.0% 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. Eastern Bankshares has raised its dividend for 2 consecutive years and BankUnited has raised its dividend for 3 consecutive years. BankUnited is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
Eastern Bankshares presently has a consensus price target of $15.25, indicating a potential upside of 14.83%. BankUnited has a consensus price target of $30.50, indicating a potential upside of 11.89%. Given BankUnited's stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts plainly believe Eastern Bankshares is more favorable than BankUnited.
Summary
BankUnited beats Eastern Bankshares 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 BKU 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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