Cohen & Steers (CNS) Competitors

Cohen & Steers (NYSE:CNS) and Ares Capital (NASDAQ:ARCC) are both finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, dividends, community ranking, media sentiment, institutional ownership, earnings, profitability, valuation and risk.

Does the MarketBeat Community prefer CNS or ARCC?

Ares Capital received 178 more outperform votes than Cohen & Steers when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 62.56% of users gave Ares Capital an outperform vote while only 54.71% of users gave Cohen & Steers an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
Cohen & Steers	Outperform Votes 238 54.71%	Underperform Votes 197 45.29%
Ares Capital	Outperform Votes 416 62.56%	Underperform Votes 249 37.44%

Which has more risk and volatility, CNS or ARCC?

Cohen & Steers has a beta of 1.55, suggesting that its stock price is 55% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Ares Capital has a beta of 1, suggesting that its stock price has a similar volatility profile to the S&P 500.

Is CNS or ARCC more profitable?

Ares Capital has a net margin of 50.90% compared to Cohen & Steers' net margin of 29.24%. Cohen & Steers' return on equity of 33.13% beat Ares Capital's return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Cohen & Steers	29.24%	33.13%	20.43%
Ares Capital	50.90%	11.54%	5.50%

Do analysts prefer CNS or ARCC?

Cohen & Steers currently has a consensus target price of $106.50, indicating a potential upside of 36.85%. Ares Capital has a consensus target price of $22.94, indicating a potential upside of 5.92%. Given Cohen & Steers' higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Cohen & Steers is more favorable than Ares Capital.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Cohen & Steers	0 Sell rating(s)	1 Hold rating(s)	1 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.50
Ares Capital	0 Sell rating(s)	3 Hold rating(s)	7 Buy rating(s)	1 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.82

Which has better earnings & valuation, CNS or ARCC?

Ares Capital has higher revenue and earnings than Cohen & Steers. Ares Capital is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Cohen & Steers, 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
Cohen & Steers	$536.76M	7.39	$151.26M	$2.97	26.20
Ares Capital	$1.71B	8.68	$1.52B	$2.45	8.84

Do insiders & institutionals believe in CNS or ARCC?

51.5% of Cohen & Steers shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 27.4% of Ares Capital shares are owned by institutional investors. 47.6% of Cohen & Steers shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.5% of Ares Capital shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Does the media prefer CNS or ARCC?

In the previous week, Ares Capital had 4 more articles in the media than Cohen & Steers. MarketBeat recorded 17 mentions for Ares Capital and 13 mentions for Cohen & Steers. Ares Capital's average media sentiment score of 1.12 beat Cohen & Steers' score of 0.59 indicating that Ares Capital is being referred to more favorably in the news media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
Cohen & Steers	3 Very Positive mention(s)	0 Positive mention(s)	10 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive
Ares Capital	12 Very Positive mention(s)	3 Positive mention(s)	2 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive

Is CNS or ARCC a better dividend stock?

Cohen & Steers pays an annual dividend of $2.48 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.2%. Ares Capital pays an annual dividend of $1.92 per share and has a dividend yield of 8.9%. Cohen & Steers pays out 83.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Ares Capital pays out 78.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Cohen & Steers has increased its dividend for 16 consecutive years. Ares Capital is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Summary

Ares Capital beats Cohen & Steers on 13 of the 22 factors compared between the two stocks.