Shift4 Payments (FOUR) Competitors

Shift4 Payments (NYSE:FOUR) and CoStar Group (NASDAQ:CSGP) are both business services companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their media sentiment, institutional ownership, earnings, dividends, profitability, risk, valuation, analyst recommendations and community ranking.

Do insiders and institutionals believe in FOUR or CSGP?

98.9% of Shift4 Payments shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 96.6% of CoStar Group shares are held by institutional investors. 25.2% of Shift4 Payments shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.1% of CoStar Group shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Do analysts recommend FOUR or CSGP?

Shift4 Payments presently has a consensus price target of $115.35, suggesting a potential upside of 20.62%. CoStar Group has a consensus price target of $87.54, suggesting a potential upside of 10.92%. Given Shift4 Payments' stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Shift4 Payments is more favorable than CoStar Group.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Shift4 Payments	0 Sell rating(s)	6 Hold rating(s)	13 Buy rating(s)	2 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.81
CoStar Group	1 Sell rating(s)	4 Hold rating(s)	11 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.63

Which has more risk & volatility, FOUR or CSGP?

Shift4 Payments has a beta of 1.82, indicating that its stock price is 82% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, CoStar Group has a beta of 0.87, indicating that its stock price is 13% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Does the media favor FOUR or CSGP?

In the previous week, Shift4 Payments had 9 more articles in the media than CoStar Group. MarketBeat recorded 20 mentions for Shift4 Payments and 11 mentions for CoStar Group. CoStar Group's average media sentiment score of 1.66 beat Shift4 Payments' score of 0.34 indicating that CoStar Group is being referred to more favorably in the news media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
Shift4 Payments	5 Very Positive mention(s)	2 Positive mention(s)	10 Neutral mention(s)	1 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Neutral
CoStar Group	11 Very Positive mention(s)	0 Positive mention(s)	0 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Very Positive

Does the MarketBeat Community believe in FOUR or CSGP?

CoStar Group received 549 more outperform votes than Shift4 Payments when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 75.08% of users gave CoStar Group an outperform vote while only 62.83% of users gave Shift4 Payments an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
Shift4 Payments	Outperform Votes 120 62.83%	Underperform Votes 71 37.17%
CoStar Group	Outperform Votes 669 75.08%	Underperform Votes 222 24.92%

Which has higher valuation and earnings, FOUR or CSGP?

CoStar Group has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Shift4 Payments. Shift4 Payments is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than CoStar Group, 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
Shift4 Payments	$3.47B	2.44	$86.20M	$2.96	32.31
CoStar Group	$2.81B	11.84	$374.70M	$0.29	272.14

Is FOUR or CSGP more profitable?

Shift4 Payments has a net margin of 6.89% compared to CoStar Group's net margin of 5.07%. Shift4 Payments' return on equity of 29.00% beat CoStar Group's return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Shift4 Payments	6.89%	29.00%	6.69%
CoStar Group	5.07%	3.11%	2.54%

Summary

Shift4 Payments beats CoStar Group on 13 of the 19 factors compared between the two stocks.