MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX – Get Free Report) and Runway Growth Finance (NASDAQ:RWAY – Get Free Report) are both finance companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, earnings, valuation, dividends, risk, profitability and institutional ownership.
Analyst Recommendations
This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for MarketAxess and Runway Growth Finance, as provided by MarketBeat.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| MarketAxess | 0 | 12 | 1 | 0 | 2.08 |
| Runway Growth Finance | 2 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 2.00 |
MarketAxess presently has a consensus price target of $156.10, indicating a potential downside of 4.77%. Runway Growth Finance has a consensus price target of $8.40, indicating a potential upside of 26.89%. Given Runway Growth Finance’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Runway Growth Finance is more favorable than MarketAxess.
Dividends
Earnings & Valuation
This table compares MarketAxess and Runway Growth Finance”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| MarketAxess | $846.27 million | 6.82 | $246.63 million | $8.48 | 19.33 |
| Runway Growth Finance | $137.33 million | 2.02 | $34.05 million | $0.11 | 60.18 |
MarketAxess has higher revenue and earnings than Runway Growth Finance. MarketAxess is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Runway Growth Finance, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Profitability
This table compares MarketAxess and Runway Growth Finance’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| MarketAxess | 35.22% | 22.48% | 12.84% |
| Runway Growth Finance | 5.82% | 11.73% | 5.55% |
Risk & Volatility
MarketAxess has a beta of 0.83, meaning that its share price is 17% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Runway Growth Finance has a beta of 0.7, meaning that its share price is 30% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Institutional & Insider Ownership
99.0% of MarketAxess shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 64.6% of Runway Growth Finance shares are held by institutional investors. 0.7% of MarketAxess shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.0% of Runway Growth Finance shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Summary
MarketAxess beats Runway Growth Finance on 12 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.
About MarketAxess
MarketAxess Holdings Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates an electronic trading platform for institutional investor and broker-dealer companies worldwide. The company offers trading technology that provides liquidity access in U.S. high-grade bonds, U.S. high-yield bonds, emerging market debt, eurobonds, municipal bonds, U.S. government bonds, and other fixed-income securities; and executes bond trades between and among institutional investor and broker-dealer clients in an all-to-all anonymous trading environment for corporate bonds through its Open Trading protocols. It also provides trading-related products and services, including composite+ pricing and other market data products to assist clients with trading decisions; auto-execution and other execution services for clients requiring specialized workflow solutions; connectivity solutions that facilitate straight-through processing; and technology services to optimize trading environments. In addition, the company offers various pre-and post-trade services, such as trade matching, trade publication, regulatory transaction reporting, and market and reference data across a range of fixed-income and other products. MarketAxess Holdings Inc. was incorporated in 2000 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
About Runway Growth Finance
Runway Growth Finance Corp. is a business development company specializing investments in senior-secured loans to late stage and growth companies. It prefers to make investments in companies engaged in the technology, life sciences, healthcare and information services, business services and select consumer services and products sectors. It prefers to investments in companies engaged in electronic equipment and instruments, systems software, hardware, storage and peripherals and specialized consumer services, application software, healthcare technology, internet software and services, data processing and outsourced services, internet retail, human resources and employment services, biotechnology, healthcare equipment and education services. It invests in senior secured loans between $10 million and $75 million.
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