Dillard's (DDS) Competitors

Dillard's (NYSE:DDS) and Nordstrom (NYSE:JWN) are both mid-cap retail/wholesale companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, valuation, dividends, community ranking, earnings, risk, media sentiment, analyst recommendations and institutional ownership.

Is DDS or JWN a better dividend stock?

Dillard's pays an annual dividend of $1.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.3%. Nordstrom pays an annual dividend of $0.76 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.2%. Dillard's pays out 2.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Nordstrom pays out 44.2% 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. Dillard's has increased its dividend for 14 consecutive years.

Does the MarketBeat Community believe in DDS or JWN?

Nordstrom received 586 more outperform votes than Dillard's when rated by MarketBeat users. However, 59.78% of users gave Dillard's an outperform vote while only 58.05% of users gave Nordstrom an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
Dillard's	Outperform Votes 431 59.78%	Underperform Votes 290 40.22%
Nordstrom	Outperform Votes 1017 58.05%	Underperform Votes 735 41.95%

Do analysts rate DDS or JWN?

Dillard's presently has a consensus target price of $326.00, indicating a potential upside of 3.59%. Nordstrom has a consensus target price of $22.80, indicating a potential downside of 5.08%. Given Dillard's' higher possible upside, equities analysts clearly believe Dillard's is more favorable than Nordstrom.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Dillard's	1 Sell rating(s)	1 Hold rating(s)	0 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	1.50
Nordstrom	4 Sell rating(s)	8 Hold rating(s)	0 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	1.67

Is DDS or JWN more profitable?

Dillard's has a net margin of 9.55% compared to Nordstrom's net margin of -1.57%. Dillard's' return on equity of 32.13% beat Nordstrom's return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Dillard's	9.55%	32.13%	15.84%
Nordstrom	-1.57%	-18.04%	-1.87%

Which has stronger valuation and earnings, DDS or JWN?

Dillard's has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Nordstrom. Dillard's is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Nordstrom, 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
Dillard's	$6.59B	0.76	$738.85M	$36.89	8.53
Nordstrom	$15.02B	0.27	$134M	$1.72	13.97

Does the media refer more to DDS or JWN?

In the previous week, Nordstrom had 12 more articles in the media than Dillard's. MarketBeat recorded 20 mentions for Nordstrom and 8 mentions for Dillard's. Dillard's' average media sentiment score of 1.42 beat Nordstrom's score of 0.74 indicating that Dillard's is being referred to more favorably in the media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
Dillard's	7 Very Positive mention(s)	0 Positive mention(s)	0 Neutral mention(s)	1 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive
Nordstrom	11 Very Positive mention(s)	2 Positive mention(s)	2 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive

Which has more risk and volatility, DDS or JWN?

Dillard's has a beta of 0.66, indicating that its share price is 34% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Nordstrom has a beta of 2.31, indicating that its share price is 131% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Do insiders and institutionals hold more shares of DDS or JWN?

67.2% of Dillard's shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 88.7% of Nordstrom shares are held by institutional investors. 33.8% of Dillard's shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 5.8% of Nordstrom shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Dillard's beats Nordstrom on 12 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.