Cato (CATO) Competitors

Citi Trends (NASDAQ:CTRN) and Cato (NYSE:CATO) are both small-cap retail/wholesale companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, institutional ownership, valuation, analyst recommendations, media sentiment, dividends, earnings, community ranking and risk.

Do institutionals & insiders have more ownership in CTRN or CATO?

61.1% of Cato shares are held by institutional investors. 10.7% of Citi Trends shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 18.1% of Cato shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Which has stronger valuation & earnings, CTRN or CATO?

Citi Trends has higher revenue and earnings than Cato. Citi Trends is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Cato, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Company	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Citi Trends	$753.08M	0.28	-$11.98M	-$5.20	-4.96
Cato	$649.81M	0.08	-$23.94M	-$0.98	-2.49

Do analysts prefer CTRN or CATO?

Citi Trends currently has a consensus target price of $33.33, indicating a potential upside of 29.15%. Given Citi Trends' stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts plainly believe Citi Trends is more favorable than Cato.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Citi Trends	0 Sell rating(s)	0 Hold rating(s)	3 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	3.00
Cato	0 Sell rating(s)	0 Hold rating(s)	0 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	0.00

Which has more risk & volatility, CTRN or CATO?

Citi Trends has a beta of 2.01, meaning that its stock price is 101% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Cato has a beta of 0.71, meaning that its stock price is 29% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Is CTRN or CATO a better dividend stock?

Citi Trends pays an annual dividend of $0.32 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.2%. Cato pays an annual dividend of $0.51 per share and has a dividend yield of 20.9%. Citi Trends pays out -6.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Cato pays out -52.0% 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. Cato is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Does the media refer more to CTRN or CATO?

In the previous week, Cato had 6 more articles in the media than Citi Trends. MarketBeat recorded 8 mentions for Cato and 2 mentions for Citi Trends. Citi Trends' average media sentiment score of 0.93 beat Cato's score of -0.28 indicating that Citi Trends is being referred to more favorably in the media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
Citi Trends	1 Very Positive mention(s)	0 Positive mention(s)	1 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive
Cato	0 Very Positive mention(s)	2 Positive mention(s)	2 Neutral mention(s)	3 Negative mention(s)	1 Very Negative mention(s)	Neutral

Does the MarketBeat Community prefer CTRN or CATO?

Citi Trends received 105 more outperform votes than Cato when rated by MarketBeat users. However, 59.52% of users gave Cato an outperform vote while only 54.58% of users gave Citi Trends an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
Citi Trends	Outperform Votes 280 54.58%	Underperform Votes 233 45.42%
Cato	Outperform Votes 175 59.52%	Underperform Votes 119 40.48%

Is CTRN or CATO more profitable?

Citi Trends has a net margin of -3.36% compared to Cato's net margin of -4.11%. Cato's return on equity of -14.41% beat Citi Trends' return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Citi Trends	-3.36%	-14.43%	-4.23%
Cato	-4.11%	-14.41%	-5.95%

Summary

Citi Trends beats Cato on 11 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.