Hercules Capital (HTGC) Competitors

FirstService (NASDAQ:FSV) and Hercules Capital (NYSE:HTGC) are both mid-cap finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, earnings, community ranking, media sentiment, profitability, analyst recommendations, risk, institutional ownership and dividends.

Is FSV or HTGC a better dividend stock?

FirstService pays an annual dividend of $1.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.5%. Hercules Capital pays an annual dividend of $1.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 8.5%. FirstService pays out 41.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Hercules Capital pays out 79.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future.

Which has better valuation and earnings, FSV or HTGC?

Hercules Capital has lower revenue, but higher earnings than FirstService. Hercules Capital is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than FirstService, 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
FirstService	$4.33B	1.96	$100.39M	$2.40	78.52
Hercules Capital	$460.67M	6.63	$337.48M	$2.02	9.31

Which has more risk and volatility, FSV or HTGC?

FirstService has a beta of 1.05, meaning that its share price is 5% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Hercules Capital has a beta of 1.39, meaning that its share price is 39% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Is FSV or HTGC more profitable?

Hercules Capital has a net margin of 65.07% compared to FirstService's net margin of 2.19%. Hercules Capital's return on equity of 17.88% beat FirstService's return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
FirstService	2.19%	16.68%	4.65%
Hercules Capital	65.07%	17.88%	9.16%

Does the MarketBeat Community prefer FSV or HTGC?

Hercules Capital received 143 more outperform votes than FirstService when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 64.46% of users gave Hercules Capital an outperform vote while only 60.07% of users gave FirstService an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
FirstService	Outperform Votes 325 60.07%	Underperform Votes 216 39.93%
Hercules Capital	Outperform Votes 468 64.46%	Underperform Votes 258 35.54%

Does the media prefer FSV or HTGC?

In the previous week, FirstService had 8 more articles in the media than Hercules Capital. MarketBeat recorded 13 mentions for FirstService and 5 mentions for Hercules Capital. FirstService's average media sentiment score of 1.49 beat Hercules Capital's score of 1.38 indicating that FirstService is being referred to more favorably in the media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
FirstService	12 Very Positive mention(s)	1 Positive mention(s)	0 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive
Hercules Capital	3 Very Positive mention(s)	1 Positive mention(s)	1 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive

Do insiders & institutionals have more ownership in FSV or HTGC?

69.4% of FirstService shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 19.7% of Hercules Capital shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.9% of Hercules 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.

Do analysts prefer FSV or HTGC?

FirstService presently has a consensus target price of $198.33, suggesting a potential upside of 5.25%. Hercules Capital has a consensus target price of $19.83, suggesting a potential upside of 5.47%. Given Hercules Capital's higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Hercules Capital is more favorable than FirstService.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
FirstService	0 Sell rating(s)	2 Hold rating(s)	4 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.67
Hercules Capital	0 Sell rating(s)	3 Hold rating(s)	3 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.50

Summary

Hercules Capital beats FirstService on 11 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.