Analyzing ArrowMark Financial (NASDAQ:BANX) and MSCI (NYSE:MSCI)

ArrowMark Financial (NASDAQ:BANX) and MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) are both finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, earnings, dividends, profitability, risk and valuation.

Risk & Volatility

ArrowMark Financial has a beta of 0.2, meaning that its stock price is 80% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, MSCI has a beta of 1.34, meaning that its stock price is 34% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares ArrowMark Financial and MSCI”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
ArrowMark Financial	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
MSCI	$2.86 billion	15.32	$1.11 billion	$15.10	37.45

MSCI has higher revenue and earnings than ArrowMark Financial.

Profitability

This table compares ArrowMark Financial and MSCI’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
ArrowMark Financial	N/A	N/A	N/A
MSCI	39.46%	-143.13%	23.46%

Dividends

ArrowMark Financial pays an annual dividend of $2.25 per share and has a dividend yield of 10.3%. MSCI pays an annual dividend of $7.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.3%. MSCI pays out 47.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. MSCI has increased its dividend for 11 consecutive years.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

24.9% of ArrowMark Financial shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 90.0% of MSCI shares are held by institutional investors. 0.7% of ArrowMark Financial shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 3.3% of MSCI 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.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and target prices for ArrowMark Financial and MSCI, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
ArrowMark Financial	0	0	0	0	0.00
MSCI	0	3	10	0	2.77

MSCI has a consensus price target of $652.45, indicating a potential upside of 15.36%. Given MSCI’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe MSCI is more favorable than ArrowMark Financial.

Summary

MSCI beats ArrowMark Financial on 10 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About ArrowMark Financial

ArrowMark Financial Corp. is a closed-end balanced mutual fund launched and managed by ArrowMark Asset Management, LLC. It invests in public equity and fixed income markets of global region. For its equity portion, the fund invests in stocks of companies operating across financials, banks sectors. It invests in growth and value stocks of companies across diversified market capitalization. For its fixed income portion, the fund invests in debt and subordinated debt, structured notes and securities, regulatory capital securities which are rated below investment grade. ArrowMark Financial Corp. was formed on February 7, 2013 and is domiciled in the United States.

About MSCI

MSCI Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides critical decision support tools and solutions for the investment community to manage investment processes worldwide. The Index segment provides indexes for use in various areas of the investment process, including indexed financial product, such as ETFs, mutual funds, annuities, futures, options, structured products, and over-the-counter derivatives; performance benchmarking; portfolio construction and rebalancing; and asset allocation, as well as licenses GICS and GICS Direct. The Analytics segment offers risk management, performance attribution and portfolio management content, application, an integrated view of risk and return service, and an analysis of market, credit, liquidity, counterparty, and climate risk across asset classes; managed services, including consolidation of client portfolio data, review and reconciliation of input data and results, and customized reporting; and HedgePlatform to measure, evaluate, and monitor the risk of hedge fund investments. The ESG and Climate segment provides products and services that help institutional investors understand how ESG impacts the long-term risk and return of their portfolio and individual security-level investments; and data, ratings, research, and tools to help investors navigate increasing regulation. The All Other Private Assets segment includes real estate and infrastructure data, benchmarks, return-analytics, climate assessments and market insights; business intelligence to real estate owners, managers, developers, and brokers; and offers investment decision support tools for private capital. The Private Capital Solutions segment offers tools to help private asset investors across mission-critical workflows, such as sourcing terms and conditions, evaluating operating performance, managing risk and other activities supporting private capital investing. MSCI Inc. was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in New York, New York.