Liberty All-Star Growth Fund (ASG) Competitors

Liberty All-Star Growth Fund (NYSE:ASG) and Bain Capital Specialty Finance (NYSE:BCSF) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, valuation, risk, profitability, dividends, earnings, analyst recommendations, media sentiment and community ranking.

Is ASG or BCSF a better dividend stock?

Liberty All-Star Growth Fund pays an annual dividend of $0.48 per share and has a dividend yield of 9.6%. Bain Capital Specialty Finance pays an annual dividend of $1.68 per share and has a dividend yield of 10.0%. Bain Capital Specialty Finance pays out 90.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future.

Do analysts rate ASG or BCSF?

Bain Capital Specialty Finance has a consensus price target of $18.50, suggesting a potential upside of 9.81%. Given Bain Capital Specialty Finance's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Bain Capital Specialty Finance is more favorable than Liberty All-Star Growth Fund.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Liberty All-Star Growth Fund	0 Sell rating(s)	0 Hold rating(s)	0 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	0.00
Bain Capital Specialty Finance	0 Sell rating(s)	1 Hold rating(s)	1 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.50

Does the MarketBeat Community prefer ASG or BCSF?

Liberty All-Star Growth Fund received 38 more outperform votes than Bain Capital Specialty Finance when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 57.23% of users gave Liberty All-Star Growth Fund an outperform vote while only 44.20% of users gave Bain Capital Specialty Finance an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
Liberty All-Star Growth Fund	Outperform Votes 99 57.23%	Underperform Votes 74 42.77%
Bain Capital Specialty Finance	Outperform Votes 61 44.20%	Underperform Votes 77 55.80%

Which has higher valuation and earnings, ASG or BCSF?

Bain Capital Specialty Finance has higher revenue and earnings than Liberty All-Star Growth Fund.

Company	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Liberty All-Star Growth Fund	$51.46M	5.64	N/A	N/A	N/A
Bain Capital Specialty Finance	$138.19M	7.88	$123.38M	$1.85	9.11

Does the media prefer ASG or BCSF?

In the previous week, Bain Capital Specialty Finance had 5 more articles in the media than Liberty All-Star Growth Fund. MarketBeat recorded 7 mentions for Bain Capital Specialty Finance and 2 mentions for Liberty All-Star Growth Fund. Bain Capital Specialty Finance's average media sentiment score of 0.46 beat Liberty All-Star Growth Fund's score of -0.50 indicating that Bain Capital Specialty Finance is being referred to more favorably in the news media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
Liberty All-Star Growth Fund	0 Very Positive mention(s)	0 Positive mention(s)	1 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Negative
Bain Capital Specialty Finance	3 Very Positive mention(s)	1 Positive mention(s)	2 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Neutral

Do institutionals & insiders hold more shares of ASG or BCSF?

21.6% of Liberty All-Star Growth Fund shares are held by institutional investors. 0.3% of Liberty All-Star Growth Fund shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.6% of Bain Capital Specialty Finance shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Is ASG or BCSF more profitable?

Bain Capital Specialty Finance has a net margin of 43.62% compared to Liberty All-Star Growth Fund's net margin of 0.00%. Bain Capital Specialty Finance's return on equity of 11.90% beat Liberty All-Star Growth Fund's return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Liberty All-Star Growth Fund	N/A	N/A	N/A
Bain Capital Specialty Finance	43.62%	11.90%	5.43%

Which has more volatility and risk, ASG or BCSF?

Liberty All-Star Growth Fund has a beta of 1.33, meaning that its share price is 33% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Bain Capital Specialty Finance has a beta of 1.1, meaning that its share price is 10% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Bain Capital Specialty Finance beats Liberty All-Star Growth Fund on 12 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.