Head to Head Comparison: Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) and AIFU (NASDAQ:AIFU)

Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) and AIFU (NASDAQ:AIFU) are both finance companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their risk, analyst recommendations, earnings, valuation, profitability, dividends and institutional ownership.

Profitability

This table compares Assured Guaranty and AIFU’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Assured Guaranty	40.65%	7.09%	3.35%
AIFU	N/A	N/A	N/A

Volatility and Risk

Assured Guaranty has a beta of 0.91, indicating that its share price is 9% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, AIFU has a beta of 0.55, indicating that its share price is 45% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations for Assured Guaranty and AIFU, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Assured Guaranty	0	2	2	0	2.50
AIFU	0	1	0	0	2.00

Assured Guaranty currently has a consensus price target of $101.00, suggesting a potential upside of 11.61%. Given Assured Guaranty’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities analysts clearly believe Assured Guaranty is more favorable than AIFU.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

92.2% of Assured Guaranty shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 26.7% of AIFU shares are owned by institutional investors. 5.1% of Assured Guaranty shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 25.6% of AIFU shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Assured Guaranty and AIFU”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Assured Guaranty	$872.00 million	4.79	$376.00 million	$8.06	11.23
AIFU	$247.81 million	0.03	$62.33 million	$14.60	0.16

Assured Guaranty has higher revenue and earnings than AIFU. AIFU is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Assured Guaranty, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Assured Guaranty beats AIFU on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Assured Guaranty

Assured Guaranty Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, provides credit protection products to public finance, infrastructure, and structured finance markets in the United States and internationally. It operates through two segments: Insurance and Asset Management. The company offers financial guaranty insurance that protects holders of debt instruments and other monetary obligations from defaults in scheduled payments. It insures and reinsures various debt obligations, including bonds issued by the United States state governmental authorities; and notes issued to finance infrastructure projects. In addition, the company insures and reinsures various the U.S. public finance obligations, such as general obligation, tax-backed, municipal utility, transportation, healthcare, higher education, infrastructure, housing revenue, investor-owned utility, renewable energy, and other public finance bonds. Further, the company involved in insuring and reinsuring of non-U.S. public finance obligations comprising regulated utilities, infrastructure finance, sovereign and sub-sovereign, renewable energy bonds, pooled infrastructure, and other public finance obligations; and the U.S. and non-U.S. Structured finance obligations, including residential mortgage-backed securities, life insurance transactions, consumer receivables securities, subscription finance facilities, pooled corporate obligations, and financial products. Additionally, it offers specialty business, such as real estate properties, insurance securitizations, and aircraft residual value insurance (RVI) transactions; and asset management services comprising investment advisory services. It markets its financial guaranty insurance directly to issuers and underwriters of public finance and structured finance securities, as well as to investors in such obligations. Assured Guaranty Ltd. was incorporated in 2003 and is headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda.

About AIFU

AIX, Inc. engages in the provision of agency services and insurance claims adjusting services. It operates through the Insurance Agency and Claims Adjusting segments. The Insurance Agency segment includes providing agency services for insurance products and life insurance products. The Claims Adjusting segment provides pre-underwriting survey services, claims adjusting services, disposal of residual value services, loading and unloading supervision services, and consulting services. The company was founded by Yin An Hu and Qiu Ping Lai in 1998 and is headquartered in Guangzhou, China.