Oak Valley Bancorp (NASDAQ:OVLY) & Westamerica Bancorporation (NASDAQ:WABC) Financial Survey

Oak Valley Bancorp (NASDAQ:OVLY) and Westamerica Bancorporation (NASDAQ:WABC) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, profitability, risk, institutional ownership, valuation, dividends and earnings.

Volatility & Risk

Oak Valley Bancorp has a beta of 0.21, suggesting that its stock price is 79% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Westamerica Bancorporation has a beta of 0.57, suggesting that its stock price is 43% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Oak Valley Bancorp and Westamerica Bancorporation’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Oak Valley Bancorp	24.80%	11.99%	1.20%
Westamerica Bancorporation	42.08%	12.26%	1.91%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations for Oak Valley Bancorp and Westamerica Bancorporation, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Oak Valley Bancorp	0	0	1	0	3.00
Westamerica Bancorporation	0	1	1	0	2.50

Westamerica Bancorporation has a consensus price target of $58.00, indicating a potential upside of 7.85%. Given Westamerica Bancorporation’s higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Westamerica Bancorporation is more favorable than Oak Valley Bancorp.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Oak Valley Bancorp and Westamerica Bancorporation”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Oak Valley Bancorp	$95.04 million	2.90	$23.91 million	$2.88	11.38
Westamerica Bancorporation	$271.77 million	4.65	$116.17 million	$4.49	11.98

Westamerica Bancorporation has higher revenue and earnings than Oak Valley Bancorp. Oak Valley Bancorp is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Westamerica Bancorporation, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

30.9% of Oak Valley Bancorp shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 81.9% of Westamerica Bancorporation shares are owned by institutional investors. 13.9% of Oak Valley Bancorp shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 5.9% of Westamerica Bancorporation shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Dividends

Oak Valley Bancorp pays an annual dividend of $0.75 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.3%. Westamerica Bancorporation pays an annual dividend of $1.92 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.6%. Oak Valley Bancorp pays out 26.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Westamerica Bancorporation pays out 42.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Oak Valley Bancorp has increased its dividend for 11 consecutive years and Westamerica Bancorporation has increased its dividend for 34 consecutive years. Westamerica Bancorporation is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Summary

Westamerica Bancorporation beats Oak Valley Bancorp on 13 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Oak Valley Bancorp

Oak Valley Bancorp operates as the bank holding company for Oak Valley Community Bank that provides a range of commercial banking services to individuals and small to medium-sized businesses in the Central Valley and the Eastern Sierras. The company's deposits products include checking and savings, money market, health savings, and individual retirement accounts, as well as certificates of deposit. It also offers commercial real estate loans, commercial business lending and trade finance, and small business administration lending, as well as consumer loans, including automobile loans, home mortgages, credit lines, and other personal loans. In addition, the company provides online and mobile banking, remote deposit capture, merchant, night depository, extended hours, wire transfer of funds, note collection services, and automated teller machines. The company was incorporated in 1990 and is headquartered in Oakdale, California.

About Westamerica Bancorporation

Westamerica Bancorporation operates as a bank holding company for the Westamerica Bank that provides various banking products and services to individual and commercial customers. The company accepts various deposit products, including retail savings and checking accounts, as well as certificates of deposit. Its loan portfolio includes commercial, commercial and residential real estate, real estate construction, and consumer installment loans, as well as indirect automobile loans. The company was formerly known as Independent Bankshares Corporation and changed its name to Westamerica Bancorporation in 1983. The company was founded in 1884 and is headquartered in San Rafael, California.