ISTR vs. IBCP, FSBC, ESQ, MCB, EQBK, SMBC, ORRF, VEL, LPRO, and BITF
Should you be buying Investar stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Investar include Independent Bank (IBCP), Five Star Bancorp (FSBC), Esquire Financial (ESQ), Metropolitan Bank (MCB), Equity Bancshares (EQBK), Southern Missouri Bancorp (SMBC), Orrstown Financial Services (ORRF), Velocity Financial (VEL), Open Lending (LPRO), and Bitfarms (BITF). These companies are all part of the "banking" industry.
Investar vs.
Investar (NASDAQ:ISTR) and Independent Bank (NASDAQ:IBCP) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, community ranking, risk, dividends, earnings, valuation, media sentiment, profitability and analyst recommendations.
Independent Bank has a net margin of 20.67% compared to Investar's net margin of 12.81%. Independent Bank's return on equity of 15.43% beat Investar's return on equity.
50.2% of Investar shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 79.4% of Independent Bank shares are held by institutional investors. 8.7% of Investar shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 5.5% of Independent Bank shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Independent Bank has higher revenue and earnings than Investar. Investar is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Independent Bank, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
In the previous week, Independent Bank had 1 more articles in the media than Investar. MarketBeat recorded 3 mentions for Independent Bank and 2 mentions for Investar. Independent Bank's average media sentiment score of 1.16 beat Investar's score of 0.46 indicating that Independent Bank is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Independent Bank received 7 more outperform votes than Investar when rated by MarketBeat users. However, 59.73% of users gave Investar an outperform vote while only 54.35% of users gave Independent Bank an outperform vote.
Investar currently has a consensus target price of $20.50, suggesting a potential upside of 15.04%. Independent Bank has a consensus target price of $39.17, suggesting a potential upside of 21.60%. Given Independent Bank's higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Independent Bank is more favorable than Investar.
Investar pays an annual dividend of $0.42 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.4%. Independent Bank pays an annual dividend of $1.04 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.2%. Investar pays out 20.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Independent Bank pays out 32.9% 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. Independent Bank has increased its dividend for 11 consecutive years. Independent Bank is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
Investar has a beta of 0.79, indicating that its share price is 21% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Independent Bank has a beta of 1.03, indicating that its share price is 3% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Summary
Independent Bank beats Investar on 16 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
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New MarketBeat Followers Over Time
This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding {thisCompany.Symbol} and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
Media Sentiment Over Time
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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This page (NASDAQ:ISTR) was last updated on 3/6/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff
