Hercules Capital (HTGC) Competitors

FirstService (NASDAQ:FSV) and Hercules Capital (NYSE:HTGC) are both mid-cap finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their community ranking, valuation, dividends, institutional ownership, risk, media sentiment, profitability, analyst recommendations and earnings.

Do analysts recommend FSV or HTGC?

FirstService presently has a consensus price target of $206.33, suggesting a potential upside of 19.24%. Hercules Capital has a consensus price target of $19.92, suggesting a potential upside of 14.83%. Given FirstService's higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe FirstService is more favorable than Hercules Capital.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
FirstService	0 Sell rating(s)	2 Hold rating(s)	4 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.67
Hercules Capital	0 Sell rating(s)	2 Hold rating(s)	4 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.67

Does the MarketBeat Community prefer FSV or HTGC?

Hercules Capital received 147 more outperform votes than FirstService when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 64.63% of users gave Hercules Capital an outperform vote while only 59.74% of users gave FirstService an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
FirstService	Outperform Votes 328 59.74%	Underperform Votes 221 40.26%
Hercules Capital	Outperform Votes 475 64.63%	Underperform Votes 260 35.37%

Is FSV or HTGC more profitable?

Hercules Capital has a net margin of 53.28% compared to FirstService's net margin of 2.58%. Hercules Capital's return on equity of 17.19% beat FirstService's return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
FirstService	2.58%	17.15%	4.79%
Hercules Capital	53.28%	17.19%	8.77%

Do institutionals and insiders hold more shares of FSV or HTGC?

69.3% of FirstService shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 19.7% of Hercules Capital shares are held by institutional investors. 1.9% of Hercules Capital shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Does the media favor FSV or HTGC?

In the previous week, FirstService had 7 more articles in the media than Hercules Capital. MarketBeat recorded 11 mentions for FirstService and 4 mentions for Hercules Capital. FirstService's average media sentiment score of 1.44 beat Hercules Capital's score of 1.13 indicating that FirstService is being referred to more favorably in the media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
FirstService	9 Very Positive mention(s)	0 Positive mention(s)	1 Neutral mention(s)	1 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive
Hercules Capital	2 Very Positive mention(s)	0 Positive mention(s)	2 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive

Is FSV or HTGC a better dividend stock?

FirstService pays an annual dividend of $1.10 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.6%. Hercules Capital pays an annual dividend of $1.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 9.2%. FirstService pays out 38.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Hercules Capital pays out 120.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. FirstService has raised its dividend for 7 consecutive years and Hercules Capital has raised its dividend for 1 consecutive years.

Which has more volatility & risk, FSV or HTGC?

FirstService has a beta of 1.04, meaning that its share price is 4% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Hercules Capital has a beta of 0.97, meaning that its share price is 3% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Which has better valuation & earnings, FSV or HTGC?

Hercules Capital has lower revenue, but higher earnings than FirstService. Hercules Capital is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than FirstService, 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
FirstService	$5.31B	1.48	$134.38M	$2.89	59.88
Hercules Capital	$310.72M	9.79	$262.97M	$1.33	13.04

Summary

FirstService beats Hercules Capital on 10 of the 19 factors compared between the two stocks.