Nelnet (NNI) Competitors

Nelnet (NYSE:NNI) and SLM (NASDAQ:SLM) are both mid-cap finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their community ranking, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, media sentiment, earnings, profitability, valuation, dividends and risk.

Which has more volatility & risk, NNI or SLM?

Nelnet has a beta of 0.89, meaning that its stock price is 11% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, SLM has a beta of 1.23, meaning that its stock price is 23% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Is NNI or SLM more profitable?

SLM has a net margin of 20.73% compared to Nelnet's net margin of 5.54%. SLM's return on equity of 31.66% beat Nelnet's return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Nelnet	5.54%	3.78%	0.80%
SLM	20.73%	31.66%	2.08%

Does the MarketBeat Community believe in NNI or SLM?

SLM received 229 more outperform votes than Nelnet when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 69.31% of users gave SLM an outperform vote while only 66.67% of users gave Nelnet an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
Nelnet	Outperform Votes 270 66.67%	Underperform Votes 135 33.33%
SLM	Outperform Votes 499 69.31%	Underperform Votes 221 30.69%

Do institutionals and insiders have more ownership in NNI or SLM?

33.5% of Nelnet shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 98.9% of SLM shares are owned by institutional investors. 50.1% of Nelnet shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.2% of SLM shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Do analysts recommend NNI or SLM?

Nelnet presently has a consensus price target of $98.00, indicating a potential downside of 12.45%. SLM has a consensus price target of $31.45, indicating a potential upside of 4.71%. Given SLM's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe SLM is more favorable than Nelnet.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Nelnet	0 Sell rating(s)	1 Hold rating(s)	0 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.00
SLM	0 Sell rating(s)	2 Hold rating(s)	9 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.82

Is NNI or SLM a better dividend stock?

Nelnet pays an annual dividend of $1.12 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.0%. SLM pays an annual dividend of $0.52 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.7%. Nelnet pays out 22.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. SLM pays out 19.6% 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. SLM is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Which has stronger earnings & valuation, NNI or SLM?

SLM has higher revenue and earnings than Nelnet. SLM is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Nelnet, 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
Nelnet	$1.17B	3.48	$91.53M	$5.00	22.39
SLM	$1.85B	3.42	$608.33M	$2.65	11.34

Does the media prefer NNI or SLM?

In the previous week, SLM had 7 more articles in the media than Nelnet. MarketBeat recorded 8 mentions for SLM and 1 mentions for Nelnet. Nelnet's average media sentiment score of 1.78 beat SLM's score of 1.09 indicating that Nelnet is being referred to more favorably in the media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
Nelnet	1 Very Positive mention(s)	0 Positive mention(s)	0 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Very Positive
SLM	5 Very Positive mention(s)	1 Positive mention(s)	2 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive

Summary

SLM beats Nelnet on 15 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.