WSFS vs. WAFD, BANC, NWBI, OCFC, DCOM, BANF, CBU, FULT, SFNC, and FFBC
Should you be buying WSFS Financial stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of WSFS Financial include WaFd (WAFD), Banc of California (BANC), Northwest Bancshares (NWBI), OceanFirst Financial (OCFC), Dime Community Bancshares (DCOM), BancFirst (BANF), Community Bank System (CBU), Fulton Financial (FULT), Simmons First National (SFNC), and First Financial Bancorp. (FFBC). These companies are all part of the "national commercial banks" industry.
WaFd (NASDAQ:WAFD) and WSFS Financial (NASDAQ:WSFS) are both mid-cap finance companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, valuation, community ranking, analyst recommendations, dividends, earnings, media sentiment and risk.
In the previous week, WaFd had 20 more articles in the media than WSFS Financial. MarketBeat recorded 23 mentions for WaFd and 3 mentions for WSFS Financial. WaFd's average media sentiment score of 1.75 beat WSFS Financial's score of 0.41 indicating that WSFS Financial is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
WaFd pays an annual dividend of $1.04 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.6%. WSFS Financial pays an annual dividend of $0.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.3%. WaFd pays out 39.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. WSFS Financial pays out 13.4% 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. WaFd has increased its dividend for 13 consecutive years and WSFS Financial has increased its dividend for 10 consecutive years. WaFd is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
WaFd presently has a consensus price target of $33.25, indicating a potential upside of 15.85%. WSFS Financial has a consensus price target of $43.67, indicating a potential downside of 4.32%. Given WSFS Financial's higher possible upside, equities analysts plainly believe WaFd is more favorable than WSFS Financial.
WSFS Financial has a net margin of 20.73% compared to WSFS Financial's net margin of 15.33%. WaFd's return on equity of 11.94% beat WSFS Financial's return on equity.
WaFd received 14 more outperform votes than WSFS Financial when rated by MarketBeat users. However, 50.89% of users gave WSFS Financial an outperform vote while only 49.31% of users gave WaFd an outperform vote.
83.7% of WaFd shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 88.5% of WSFS Financial shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.3% of WaFd shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.2% of WSFS Financial shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
WaFd has a beta of 0.84, meaning that its stock price is 16% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, WSFS Financial has a beta of 1.02, meaning that its stock price is 2% more volatile than the S&P 500.
WSFS Financial has higher revenue and earnings than WaFd. WSFS Financial is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than WaFd, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Summary
WSFS Financial beats WaFd on 13 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding WSFS 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 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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