BAC vs. WFC, C, JPM, AXP, HSBC, MS, GS, RY, SCHW, and MUFG
Should you be buying Bank of America stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Bank of America include Wells Fargo & Company (WFC), Citigroup (C), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), American Express (AXP), HSBC (HSBC), Morgan Stanley (MS), The Goldman Sachs Group (GS), Royal Bank of Canada (RY), Charles Schwab (SCHW), and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG). These companies are all part of the "finance" sector.
Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) and Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC) are both large-cap finance companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, valuation, analyst recommendations, risk, media sentiment, earnings, dividends, community ranking and institutional ownership.
In the previous week, Bank of America had 16 more articles in the media than Wells Fargo & Company. MarketBeat recorded 40 mentions for Bank of America and 24 mentions for Wells Fargo & Company. Wells Fargo & Company's average media sentiment score of 0.94 beat Bank of America's score of 0.65 indicating that Wells Fargo & Company is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Bank of America has higher revenue and earnings than Wells Fargo & Company. Wells Fargo & Company is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Bank of America, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
70.7% of Bank of America shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 75.9% of Wells Fargo & Company shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.3% of Bank of America shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.1% of Wells Fargo & Company shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
Wells Fargo & Company has a net margin of 15.63% compared to Bank of America's net margin of 13.94%. Wells Fargo & Company's return on equity of 12.30% beat Bank of America's return on equity.
Bank of America has a beta of 1.37, indicating that its share price is 37% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Wells Fargo & Company has a beta of 1.18, indicating that its share price is 18% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Bank of America presently has a consensus target price of $38.70, suggesting a potential downside of 1.50%. Wells Fargo & Company has a consensus target price of $58.99, suggesting a potential downside of 3.42%. Given Bank of America's stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts clearly believe Bank of America is more favorable than Wells Fargo & Company.
Bank of America pays an annual dividend of $0.96 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.4%. Wells Fargo & Company pays an annual dividend of $1.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.3%. Bank of America pays out 33.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Wells Fargo & Company pays out 29.2% 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.
Bank of America received 458 more outperform votes than Wells Fargo & Company when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 65.81% of users gave Bank of America an outperform vote while only 63.21% of users gave Wells Fargo & Company an outperform vote.
Summary
Bank of America beats Wells Fargo & Company on 12 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding BAC 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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