Reviewing U.S. Global Investors (NASDAQ:GROW) and BlackRock (NYSE:BLK)

BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) and U.S. Global Investors (NASDAQ:GROW) are both finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, dividends, earnings, risk, analyst recommendations, valuation and profitability.

Dividends

BlackRock pays an annual dividend of $20.84 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.0%. U.S. Global Investors pays an annual dividend of $0.09 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.0%. BlackRock pays out 58.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. U.S. Global Investors pays out 150.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. BlackRock has increased its dividend for 16 consecutive years.

Volatility & Risk

BlackRock has a beta of 1.47, indicating that its share price is 47% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, U.S. Global Investors has a beta of 0.64, indicating that its share price is 36% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares BlackRock and U.S. Global Investors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
BlackRock	22.93%	15.14%	5.14%
U.S. Global Investors	10.04%	1.86%	1.75%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares BlackRock and U.S. Global Investors”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
BlackRock	$24.22 billion	6.76	$5.55 billion	$35.42	29.80
U.S. Global Investors	$8.45 million	4.60	-$330,000.00	$0.06	50.00

BlackRock has higher revenue and earnings than U.S. Global Investors. BlackRock is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than U.S. Global Investors, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and target prices for BlackRock and U.S. Global Investors, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
BlackRock	0	4	15	1	2.85
U.S. Global Investors	0	1	0	0	2.00

BlackRock presently has a consensus price target of $1,311.11, indicating a potential upside of 24.20%. Given BlackRock’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe BlackRock is more favorable than U.S. Global Investors.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

80.7% of BlackRock shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 23.6% of U.S. Global Investors shares are held by institutional investors. 2.0% of BlackRock shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 19.2% of U.S. Global Investors shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

BlackRock beats U.S. Global Investors on 15 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.

About BlackRock

BlackRock, Inc. is a publicly owned investment manager. The firm primarily provides its services to institutional, intermediary, and individual investors including corporate, public, union, and industry pension plans, insurance companies, third-party mutual funds, endowments, public institutions, governments, foundations, charities, sovereign wealth funds, corporations, official institutions, and banks. It also provides global risk management and advisory services. The firm manages separate client-focused equity, fixed income, and balanced portfolios. It also launches and manages open-end and closed-end mutual funds, offshore funds, unit trusts, and alternative investment vehicles including structured funds. The firm launches equity, fixed income, balanced, and real estate mutual funds. It also launches equity, fixed income, balanced, currency, commodity, and multi-asset exchange traded funds. The firm also launches and manages hedge funds. It invests in the public equity, fixed income, real estate, currency, commodity, and alternative markets across the globe. The firm primarily invests in growth and value stocks of small-cap, mid-cap, SMID-cap, large-cap, and multi-cap companies. It also invests in dividend-paying equity securities. The firm invests in investment grade municipal securities, government securities including securities issued or guaranteed by a government or a government agency or instrumentality, corporate bonds, and asset-backed and mortgage-backed securities. It employs fundamental and quantitative analysis with a focus on bottom-up and top-down approach to make its investments. The firm employs liquidity, asset allocation, balanced, real estate, and alternative strategies to make its investments. In real estate sector, it seeks to invest in Poland and Germany. The firm benchmarks the performance of its portfolios against various S&P, Russell, Barclays, MSCI, Citigroup, and Merrill Lynch indices. BlackRock, Inc. was founded in 1988 and is based in New York City with additional offices in Boston, Massachusetts; London, United Kingdom; Gurgaon, India; Hong Kong; Greenwich, Connecticut; Princeton, New Jersey; Edinburgh, United Kingdom; Sydney, Australia; Taipei, Taiwan; Singapore; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Washington, District of Columbia; Toronto, Canada; Wilmington, Delaware; and San Francisco, California.

About U.S. Global Investors

U.S. Global Investors, Inc. is a publicly owned investment manager. It primarily provides its services to investment companies. The firm is a large advisory firm, an investment adviser to an investment company which provides portfolio management for investment companies. The firm manages and launches equity/balanced funds, fixed income funds and other funds. It also manages hedge funds. The firm primarily invests in no-load mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs). U.S. Global Investors, Inc. is based in San Antonio, Texas.