Analyzing Public Storage (NYSE:PSA) & AG Mortgage Investment Trust (NYSE:MITT)

AG Mortgage Investment Trust (NYSE:MITT) and Public Storage (NYSE:PSA) are both finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, risk, profitability, analyst recommendations, valuation, earnings and dividends.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and target prices for AG Mortgage Investment Trust and Public Storage, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
AG Mortgage Investment Trust	0	1	3	0	2.75
Public Storage	0	5	7	1	2.69

AG Mortgage Investment Trust currently has a consensus target price of $8.25, suggesting a potential upside of 20.79%. Public Storage has a consensus target price of $333.75, suggesting a potential upside of 9.81%. Given AG Mortgage Investment Trust’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe AG Mortgage Investment Trust is more favorable than Public Storage.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

27.3% of AG Mortgage Investment Trust shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 78.8% of Public Storage shares are held by institutional investors. 3.8% of AG Mortgage Investment Trust shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 11.1% of Public Storage shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Dividends

AG Mortgage Investment Trust pays an annual dividend of $0.80 per share and has a dividend yield of 11.7%. Public Storage pays an annual dividend of $12.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.9%. AG Mortgage Investment Trust pays out 65.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Public Storage pays out 119.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. AG Mortgage Investment Trust has raised its dividend for 2 consecutive years. AG Mortgage Investment Trust is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares AG Mortgage Investment Trust and Public Storage”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
AG Mortgage Investment Trust	$75.32 million	2.69	$53.78 million	$1.23	5.55
Public Storage	$4.72 billion	11.29	$2.15 billion	$10.07	30.18

Public Storage has higher revenue and earnings than AG Mortgage Investment Trust. AG Mortgage Investment Trust is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Public Storage, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares AG Mortgage Investment Trust and Public Storage’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
AG Mortgage Investment Trust	20.19%	9.70%	0.46%
Public Storage	40.54%	34.07%	9.60%

Volatility and Risk

AG Mortgage Investment Trust has a beta of 1.48, suggesting that its stock price is 48% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Public Storage has a beta of 0.91, suggesting that its stock price is 9% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Public Storage beats AG Mortgage Investment Trust on 12 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.

About AG Mortgage Investment Trust

AG Mortgage Investment Trust, Inc. operates as a residential mortgage real estate investment trust in the United States. Its investment portfolio includes residential investments, including non-agency loans, agency-eligible loans, re-and non-performing loans, and non-agency residential mortgage-backed securities, as well as commercial loans and commercial mortgage-backed securities. The company qualifies as a real estate investment trust for federal income tax purposes. It generally would not be subject to federal corporate income taxes if it distributes at least 90% of its taxable income to its stockholders. AG Mortgage Investment Trust, Inc. was incorporated in 2011 and is based in New York, New York.

About Public Storage

Public Storage, a member of the S&P 500 and FT Global 500, is a REIT that primarily acquires, develops, owns, and operates self-storage facilities. At December 31, 2023, we had: (i) interests in 3,044 self-storage facilities located in 40 states with approximately 218 million net rentable square feet in the United States and (ii) a 35% common equity interest in Shurgard Self Storage Limited (Euronext Brussels: SHUR), which owned 275 self-storage facilities located in seven Western European nations with approximately 15 million net rentable square feet operated under the Shurgard brand. Our headquarters are located in Glendale, California.