Central Securities (NYSE:CET) & SURO Capital (NASDAQ:SSSS) Financial Comparison

SURO Capital (NASDAQ:SSSS) and Central Securities (NYSE:CET) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, earnings, institutional ownership, risk, dividends, analyst recommendations and profitability.

Dividends

SURO Capital pays an annual dividend of $0.11 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.5%. Central Securities pays an annual dividend of $2.30 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.9%. SURO Capital pays out -5.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current recommendations for SURO Capital and Central Securities, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
SURO Capital	0	0	2	0	3.00
Central Securities	0	0	0	0	0.00

SURO Capital presently has a consensus target price of $8.00, indicating a potential upside of 8.62%. Given SURO Capital’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts plainly believe SURO Capital is more favorable than Central Securities.

Profitability

This table compares SURO Capital and Central Securities’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
SURO Capital	-462.84%	-6.61%	-4.48%
Central Securities	N/A	N/A	N/A

Institutional and Insider Ownership

12.9% of SURO Capital shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 8.7% of Central Securities shares are owned by institutional investors. 6.7% of SURO Capital shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 9.5% of Central Securities shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Volatility & Risk

SURO Capital has a beta of 1.73, indicating that its share price is 73% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Central Securities has a beta of 0.83, indicating that its share price is 17% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares SURO Capital and Central Securities”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
SURO Capital	-$3.72 million	-46.63	-$38.12 million	($1.89)	-3.90
Central Securities	$296.20 million	4.59	N/A	N/A	N/A

Central Securities has higher revenue and earnings than SURO Capital.

Summary

Central Securities beats SURO Capital on 7 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About SURO Capital

SuRo Capital Corp. is a business development company. The firm seeks to invest in growth capital, late stage and venture capital-backed private companies. SuRo Capital Corp. was founded in 2010 and is based in San Francisco, California with additional office in New York, New York.

About Central Securities

Central Securities Corp. is a publicly owned investment manager. The firm invests in the public equity markets of the United States. It also invests on bonds, convertible bonds, preferred stocks, convertible preferred stocks, warrants, options real estate, or short-term obligations of governments, banks and corporations. Central Securities Corp. was founded on October 1, 1929 and is based in New York City.