Provident Bancorp (PVBC) Competitors

Heritage Financial (NASDAQ:HFWA) and Provident Bancorp (NASDAQ:PVBC) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, community ranking, analyst recommendations, valuation, dividends, risk, profitability, earnings and media sentiment.

Which has more risk & volatility, HFWA or PVBC?

Heritage Financial has a beta of 0.53, meaning that its stock price is 47% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Provident Bancorp has a beta of 0.3, meaning that its stock price is 70% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Do analysts prefer HFWA or PVBC?

Heritage Financial currently has a consensus target price of $25.67, indicating a potential upside of 18.64%. Provident Bancorp has a consensus target price of $12.00, indicating a potential upside of 8.65%. Given Heritage Financial's stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts clearly believe Heritage Financial is more favorable than Provident Bancorp.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Heritage Financial	0 Sell rating(s)	2 Hold rating(s)	1 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.33
Provident Bancorp	0 Sell rating(s)	1 Hold rating(s)	0 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.00

Is HFWA or PVBC a better dividend stock?

Heritage Financial pays an annual dividend of $0.96 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.4%. Provident Bancorp pays an annual dividend of $0.04 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.4%. Heritage Financial pays out 77.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Provident Bancorp pays out 9.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Heritage Financial has increased its dividend for 14 consecutive years. Heritage Financial is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Do institutionals & insiders believe in HFWA or PVBC?

78.3% of Heritage Financial shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 74.6% of Provident Bancorp shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.8% of Heritage Financial shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 3.9% of Provident Bancorp shares are owned by company 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.

Does the media prefer HFWA or PVBC?

In the previous week, Heritage Financial and Heritage Financial both had 2 articles in the media. Heritage Financial's average media sentiment score of 1.38 beat Provident Bancorp's score of 0.58 indicating that Heritage Financial is being referred to more favorably in the media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
Heritage Financial	2 Very Positive mention(s)	0 Positive mention(s)	0 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive
Provident Bancorp	1 Very Positive mention(s)	0 Positive mention(s)	1 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive

Which has better valuation & earnings, HFWA or PVBC?

Heritage Financial has higher revenue and earnings than Provident Bancorp. Heritage Financial is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Provident Bancorp, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Company	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Heritage Financial	$216.84M	3.39	$43.26M	$1.24	17.45
Provident Bancorp	$55.27M	3.54	$7.27M	$0.43	25.69

Is HFWA or PVBC more profitable?

Heritage Financial has a net margin of 13.64% compared to Provident Bancorp's net margin of 7.62%. Heritage Financial's return on equity of 7.17% beat Provident Bancorp's return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Heritage Financial	13.64%	7.17%	0.87%
Provident Bancorp	7.62%	3.22%	0.44%

Does the MarketBeat Community believe in HFWA or PVBC?

Heritage Financial received 235 more outperform votes than Provident Bancorp when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 57.96% of users gave Heritage Financial an outperform vote while only 57.14% of users gave Provident Bancorp an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
Heritage Financial	Outperform Votes 335 57.96%	Underperform Votes 243 42.04%
Provident Bancorp	Outperform Votes 100 57.14%	Underperform Votes 75 42.86%

Summary

Heritage Financial beats Provident Bancorp on 16 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.