Head-To-Head Contrast: Capital One Financial Corporation (COF) & Green Dot Corporation (GDOT)

Capital One Financial Corporation (NYSE: COF) and Green Dot Corporation (NYSE:GDOT) are both finance companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their profitabiliy, analyst recommendations, dividends, earnings, risk, valuation and institutional ownership.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Capital One Financial Corporation and Green Dot Corporation’s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	EBITDA	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Capital One Financial Corporation	$19.13 billion	2.15	$3.31 billion	$6.83	12.47
Green Dot Corporation	$743.75 million	2.66	$102.86 million	$0.95	41.89

Capital One Financial Corporation has higher revenue and earnings than Green Dot Corporation. Capital One Financial Corporation is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Green Dot Corporation, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

87.7% of Capital One Financial Corporation shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 81.2% of Green Dot Corporation shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.7% of Capital One Financial Corporation shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 11.0% of Green Dot Corporation shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Dividends

Capital One Financial Corporation pays an annual dividend of $1.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.9%. Green Dot Corporation does not pay a dividend. Capital One Financial Corporation pays out 23.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Green Dot Corporation has raised its dividend for 4 consecutive years.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Capital One Financial Corporation and Green Dot Corporation, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Capital One Financial Corporation	2	10	10	1	2.43
Green Dot Corporation	0	3	6	0	2.67

Capital One Financial Corporation currently has a consensus target price of $93.26, suggesting a potential upside of 9.53%. Green Dot Corporation has a consensus target price of $39.29, suggesting a potential downside of 1.29%. Given Capital One Financial Corporation’s higher probable upside, equities analysts plainly believe Capital One Financial Corporation is more favorable than Green Dot Corporation.

Risk and Volatility

Capital One Financial Corporation has a beta of 1.2, indicating that its stock price is 20% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Green Dot Corporation has a beta of 1.06, indicating that its stock price is 6% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Capital One Financial Corporation and Green Dot Corporation’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Capital One Financial Corporation	13.32%	7.92%	1.09%
Green Dot Corporation	6.65%	10.11%	4.07%

Summary

Capital One Financial Corporation beats Green Dot Corporation on 10 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Capital One Financial Corporation

Capital One Financial Corporation is a diversified financial services holding company. The Company, along with its subsidiaries, offers a range of financial products and services to consumers, small businesses and commercial clients through branches, the Internet and other distribution channels. The Company’s segments include Credit Card, Consumer Banking, Commercial Banking and Other. The Credit Card segment consists of its domestic consumer and small business card lending, and the international card lending businesses in Canada and the United Kingdom. The Consumer Banking segment consists of its branch-based lending and deposit gathering activities for consumers and small businesses, national deposit gathering, national auto lending and consumer home loan lending and servicing activities. The Commercial Banking consists of its lending, deposit gathering and treasury management services to commercial real estate, and commercial and industrial customers.

About Green Dot Corporation

Green Dot Corporation (Green Dot) is a pro-consumer financial technology innovator. The Company is a provider of reloadable prepaid debit cards and cash reload processing services in the United States. The Company operates through two segments: Account Services, and Processing and Settlement Services. The Company’s account services segment includes branded deposit account programs, including Green Dot-branded and affinity-branded general purpose reloadable (GPR) card accounts; checking accounts, open-loop gift cards and secured credit cards. The Company’s processing and settlement services include its money processing services, which consists of reload services and 1099 disbursements, and its tax refund processing services. It also has operations in the mobile technology and mobile banking with GoBank mobile checking account. Through its subsidiary, SBBT Holdings, LLC (TPG), it also operates as a processor of tax refund disbursements in the United States.