MFA Financial (MFA) Competitors

Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance (NYSE:ARI) and MFA Financial (NYSE:MFA) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, analyst recommendations, community ranking, risk, profitability, dividends, media sentiment and valuation.

Do institutionals & insiders hold more shares of ARI or MFA?

54.4% of Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 65.3% of MFA Financial shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.7% of Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.7% of MFA Financial shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Do analysts prefer ARI or MFA?

Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance currently has a consensus price target of $9.63, indicating a potential upside of 5.19%. MFA Financial has a consensus price target of $13.60, indicating a potential upside of 23.41%. Given MFA Financial's stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe MFA Financial is more favorable than Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance	1 Sell rating(s)	4 Hold rating(s)	0 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	1.80
MFA Financial	0 Sell rating(s)	1 Hold rating(s)	4 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.80

Which has more volatility & risk, ARI or MFA?

Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance has a beta of 1.75, suggesting that its share price is 75% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, MFA Financial has a beta of 2.12, suggesting that its share price is 112% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Does the media prefer ARI or MFA?

In the previous week, MFA Financial had 1 more articles in the media than Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance. MarketBeat recorded 4 mentions for MFA Financial and 3 mentions for Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance. MFA Financial's average media sentiment score of 0.54 beat Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance's score of 0.33 indicating that MFA Financial is being referred to more favorably in the news media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance	0 Very Positive mention(s)	0 Positive mention(s)	2 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Neutral
MFA Financial	2 Very Positive mention(s)	0 Positive mention(s)	2 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive

Does the MarketBeat Community believe in ARI or MFA?

MFA Financial received 45 more outperform votes than Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 58.33% of users gave MFA Financial an outperform vote while only 58.32% of users gave Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance	Outperform Votes 319 58.32%	Underperform Votes 228 41.68%
MFA Financial	Outperform Votes 364 58.33%	Underperform Votes 260 41.67%

Is ARI or MFA a better dividend stock?

Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance pays an annual dividend of $1.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 10.9%. MFA Financial pays an annual dividend of $1.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 12.7%. Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance pays out -108.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. MFA Financial pays out 88.1% 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 & earnings, ARI or MFA?

MFA Financial has higher revenue and earnings than Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance. Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than MFA Financial, 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
Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance	$344.59M	3.67	$58.13M	-$0.92	-9.95
MFA Financial	$605.60M	1.86	$80.16M	$1.59	6.93

Is ARI or MFA more profitable?

MFA Financial has a net margin of 28.38% compared to Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance's net margin of -35.84%. MFA Financial's return on equity of 9.97% beat Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance's return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance	-35.84%	9.11%	2.01%
MFA Financial	28.38%	9.97%	1.71%

Summary

MFA Financial beats Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance on 16 of the 19 factors compared between the two stocks.