LOCO vs. HABT, DENN, NDLS, FWRG, KRUS, CBRL, JACK, BJRI, PTLO, and DIN
Should you be buying El Pollo Loco stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of El Pollo Loco include Habit Restaurants (HABT), Denny's (DENN), Noodles & Company (NDLS), First Watch Restaurant Group (FWRG), Kura Sushi USA (KRUS), Cracker Barrel Old Country Store (CBRL), Jack in the Box (JACK), BJ's Restaurants (BJRI), Portillo's (PTLO), and Dine Brands Global (DIN). These companies are all part of the "retail/wholesale" sector.
El Pollo Loco (NASDAQ:LOCO) and Habit Restaurants (NASDAQ:HABT) 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, community ranking, media sentiment, valuation, earnings, dividends, risk, analyst recommendations and institutional ownership.
El Pollo Loco received 20 more outperform votes than Habit Restaurants when rated by MarketBeat users. However, 68.60% of users gave Habit Restaurants an outperform vote while only 59.76% of users gave El Pollo Loco an outperform vote.
El Pollo Loco has a net margin of 5.64% compared to Habit Restaurants' net margin of 0.75%. El Pollo Loco's return on equity of 10.13% beat Habit Restaurants' return on equity.
El Pollo Loco presently has a consensus price target of $12.00, indicating a potential upside of 12.36%. Given El Pollo Loco's higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe El Pollo Loco is more favorable than Habit Restaurants.
In the previous week, El Pollo Loco had 1 more articles in the media than Habit Restaurants. MarketBeat recorded 6 mentions for El Pollo Loco and 5 mentions for Habit Restaurants. El Pollo Loco's average media sentiment score of 0.51 beat Habit Restaurants' score of 0.00 indicating that El Pollo Loco is being referred to more favorably in the media.
81.3% of El Pollo Loco shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 64.3% of Habit Restaurants shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.9% of El Pollo Loco shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 16.0% of Habit Restaurants shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
El Pollo Loco has a beta of 1.44, suggesting that its stock price is 44% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Habit Restaurants has a beta of 0.96, suggesting that its stock price is 4% less volatile than the S&P 500.
El Pollo Loco has higher revenue and earnings than Habit Restaurants. El Pollo Loco is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Habit Restaurants, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Summary
El Pollo Loco beats Habit Restaurants on 12 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding LOCO 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 NASDAQ 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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