AEO vs. JWN, ANF, GPS, URBN, FL, BKE, CAL, GES, SCVL, and DBI
Should you be buying American Eagle Outfitters stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of American Eagle Outfitters include Nordstrom (JWN), Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF), GAP (GPS), Urban Outfitters (URBN), Foot Locker (FL), Buckle (BKE), Caleres (CAL), Guess? (GES), Shoe Carnival (SCVL), and Designer Brands (DBI).
Nordstrom (NYSE:JWN) and American Eagle Outfitters (NYSE:AEO) are both mid-cap retail/wholesale companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, media sentiment, community ranking, valuation, analyst recommendations, risk, institutional ownership, profitability and earnings.
Nordstrom pays an annual dividend of $0.76 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.4%. American Eagle Outfitters pays an annual dividend of $0.50 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.3%. Nordstrom pays out 41.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. American Eagle Outfitters pays out 45.0% 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. Nordstrom has increased its dividend for 1 consecutive years and American Eagle Outfitters has increased its dividend for 1 consecutive years. Nordstrom is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
American Eagle Outfitters has a net margin of 4.12% compared to American Eagle Outfitters' net margin of -1.35%. Nordstrom's return on equity of 19.39% beat American Eagle Outfitters' return on equity.
88.7% of Nordstrom shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 97.3% of American Eagle Outfitters shares are held by institutional investors. 5.8% of Nordstrom shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 7.3% of American Eagle Outfitters shares are held by company 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.
American Eagle Outfitters received 146 more outperform votes than Nordstrom when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 64.27% of users gave American Eagle Outfitters an outperform vote while only 58.60% of users gave Nordstrom an outperform vote.
Nordstrom presently has a consensus price target of $17.42, suggesting a potential downside of 21.19%. American Eagle Outfitters has a consensus price target of $25.00, suggesting a potential upside of 13.79%. Given Nordstrom's stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe American Eagle Outfitters is more favorable than Nordstrom.
Nordstrom has a beta of 2.59, meaning that its stock price is 159% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, American Eagle Outfitters has a beta of 1.6, meaning that its stock price is 60% more volatile than the S&P 500.
American Eagle Outfitters has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Nordstrom. Nordstrom is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than American Eagle Outfitters, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
In the previous week, Nordstrom had 9 more articles in the media than American Eagle Outfitters. MarketBeat recorded 43 mentions for Nordstrom and 34 mentions for American Eagle Outfitters. Nordstrom's average media sentiment score of 0.51 beat American Eagle Outfitters' score of 0.40 indicating that American Eagle Outfitters is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Summary
American Eagle Outfitters beats Nordstrom on 14 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding AEO and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
Skip ChartThis 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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