LAZ vs. LPLA, EVR, SF, BGC, PIPR, OPY, FBRC, MS, GS, and SCHW
Should you be buying Lazard stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Lazard include LPL Financial (LPLA), Evercore (EVR), Stifel Financial (SF), BGC Group (BGC), Piper Sandler Companies (PIPR), Oppenheimer (OPY), FBR & Co. (FBRC), Morgan Stanley (MS), The Goldman Sachs Group (GS), and Charles Schwab (SCHW). These companies are all part of the "investment banking & brokerage" industry.
Lazard (NYSE:LAZ) and LPL Financial (NASDAQ:LPLA) are both finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their media sentiment, community ranking, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, dividends, profitability, valuation, risk and earnings.
LPL Financial has a net margin of 9.71% compared to Lazard's net margin of -0.63%. LPL Financial's return on equity of 55.22% beat Lazard's return on equity.
LPL Financial has higher revenue and earnings than Lazard. Lazard is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than LPL Financial, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Lazard pays an annual dividend of $2.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.1%. LPL Financial pays an annual dividend of $1.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.5%. Lazard pays out -571.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. LPL Financial pays out 9.1% 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. Lazard is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
54.8% of Lazard shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 95.7% of LPL Financial shares are held by institutional investors. 3.9% of Lazard shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.3% of LPL Financial shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
Lazard has a beta of 1.4, meaning that its share price is 40% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, LPL Financial has a beta of 0.9, meaning that its share price is 10% less volatile than the S&P 500.
In the previous week, LPL Financial had 7 more articles in the media than Lazard. MarketBeat recorded 34 mentions for LPL Financial and 27 mentions for Lazard. LPL Financial's average media sentiment score of 0.66 beat Lazard's score of 0.42 indicating that LPL Financial is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Lazard currently has a consensus price target of $48.33, indicating a potential downside of 0.30%. LPL Financial has a consensus price target of $282.55, indicating a potential upside of 27.71%. Given LPL Financial's higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe LPL Financial is more favorable than Lazard.
Lazard received 144 more outperform votes than LPL Financial when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 64.59% of users gave Lazard an outperform vote while only 58.29% of users gave LPL Financial an outperform vote.
Summary
LPL Financial beats Lazard on 12 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding LAZ 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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