Westwood Holdings Group (NYSE:WHG – Get Free Report) and Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE:ICE – Get Free Report) are both finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, risk, profitability, earnings, valuation and dividends.
Dividends
Westwood Holdings Group pays an annual dividend of $0.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.2%. Intercontinental Exchange pays an annual dividend of $2.08 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.4%. Westwood Holdings Group pays out 68.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Intercontinental Exchange pays out 29.4% 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. Intercontinental Exchange has raised its dividend for 9 consecutive years.
Analyst Ratings
This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Westwood Holdings Group and Intercontinental Exchange, as reported by MarketBeat.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| Westwood Holdings Group | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3.00 |
| Intercontinental Exchange | 0 | 2 | 9 | 1 | 2.92 |
Institutional and Insider Ownership
56.6% of Westwood Holdings Group shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 89.3% of Intercontinental Exchange shares are held by institutional investors. 17.4% of Westwood Holdings Group shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.8% of Intercontinental Exchange shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
Earnings & Valuation
This table compares Westwood Holdings Group and Intercontinental Exchange”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| Westwood Holdings Group | $97.76 million | 1.82 | $7.06 million | $0.88 | 21.34 |
| Intercontinental Exchange | $12.64 billion | 6.77 | $3.31 billion | $7.08 | 21.52 |
Intercontinental Exchange has higher revenue and earnings than Westwood Holdings Group. Westwood Holdings Group is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Intercontinental Exchange, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Volatility and Risk
Westwood Holdings Group has a beta of 0.56, indicating that its share price is 44% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Intercontinental Exchange has a beta of 0.93, indicating that its share price is 7% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Profitability
This table compares Westwood Holdings Group and Intercontinental Exchange’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| Westwood Holdings Group | 7.73% | 8.10% | 6.59% |
| Intercontinental Exchange | 30.08% | 14.95% | 2.77% |
Summary
Intercontinental Exchange beats Westwood Holdings Group on 14 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.
About Westwood Holdings Group
Westwood Holdings Group, Inc., through its subsidiaries, manages investment assets and provides services for its clients. The company operates in two segments, Advisory and Trust. The Advisory segment provides investment advisory services to corporate retirement plans, public retirement plans, endowments, foundations, individuals, and the Westwood Funds; and investment sub-advisory services to mutual funds, pooled investment vehicles, and its Trust segment. The Trust segment offers trust and custodial services; and participates in common trust funds that it sponsors to institutions and high net worth individuals. Westwood Holdings Group, Inc. was founded in 1983 and is based in Dallas, Texas.
About Intercontinental Exchange
Intercontinental Exchange, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the provision of market infrastructure, data services, and technology solutions for financial institutions, corporations, and government entities in the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Singapore, India, Abu Dhabi, Israel, and Canada. It operates through three segments: Exchanges, Fixed Income and Data Services, and Mortgage Technology. The company operates regulated marketplaces for listing, trading, and clearing an array of derivatives contracts and financial securities, such as commodities, interest rates, foreign exchange, and equities, as well as corporate and exchange-traded funds; and trading venues, including regulated exchanges and clearing houses. It also offers energy, agricultural and metals, and financial futures and options; and cash equities and equity options, and over-the-counter and other markets, as well as listings and data and connectivity services. In addition, the company provides fixed income data and analytic, fixed income execution, CDS clearing, and other multi-asset class data and network services. Further, it offers proprietary and comprehensive mortgage origination platform, which serves residential mortgage loans; closing solutions that provides customers connectivity to the mortgage supply chain and facilitates the secure exchange of information; data and analytics services; and Data as a Service for lenders to access data and origination information. Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
Receive News & Ratings for Westwood Holdings Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Westwood Holdings Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter.
