U.S. Global Investors (NASDAQ:GROW) versus SEI Investments (NASDAQ:SEIC) Critical Survey

SEI Investments (NASDAQ:SEIC) and U.S. Global Investors (NASDAQ:GROW) are both finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, profitability, earnings, dividends, valuation, risk and institutional ownership.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for SEI Investments and U.S. Global Investors, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
SEI Investments	0	1	6	0	2.86
U.S. Global Investors	0	0	1	0	3.00

SEI Investments presently has a consensus target price of $122.60, suggesting a potential upside of 11.06%. Given SEI Investments’ higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe SEI Investments is more favorable than U.S. Global Investors.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
SEI Investments	28.85%	29.16%	22.68%
U.S. Global Investors	29.81%	6.70%	6.30%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

70.6% of SEI Investments shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 23.6% of U.S. Global Investors shares are owned by institutional investors. 4.8% of SEI Investments shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 19.2% of U.S. Global Investors shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares SEI Investments and U.S. Global Investors”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
SEI Investments	$2.30 billion	5.77	$715.30 million	$5.67	19.47
U.S. Global Investors	$10.25 million	3.61	$3.06 million	$0.25	11.92

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

Volatility and Risk

SEI Investments has a beta of 0.97, suggesting that its stock price is 3% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, U.S. Global Investors has a beta of 0.68, suggesting that its stock price is 32% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

SEI Investments pays an annual dividend of $1.04 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.9%. U.S. Global Investors pays an annual dividend of $0.09 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.0%. SEI Investments pays out 18.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. U.S. Global Investors pays out 36.0% 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. SEI Investments has increased its dividend for 34 consecutive years.

Summary

SEI Investments beats U.S. Global Investors on 13 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About SEI Investments

SEI Investments Company is a publicly owned asset management holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the firm provides wealth management, retirement and investment solutions, asset management, asset administration, investment processing outsourcing solutions, financial services, and investment advisory services to its clients. It provides its services to private banks, independent financial advisers, institutional investors, investment managers, investment advisors, wealth management organizations, corporations, retirement scheme sponsors, not-for-profit organizations, hedge fund managers, registered investment advisers, independent broker-dealers, financial planners, life insurance agents, defined-benefit schemes, defined-contribution schemes, endowments, foundations, and board-designated fund, through its subsidiaries. Through its subsidiaries, the firm manages separate client-focused portfolios. It also launches and manages equity, fixed income, and balanced mutual funds, through its subsidiaries. Through its subsidiaries, the firm invests in public equity and fixed income markets. It employs fundamental and quantitative analysis with a focus on top-down and bottom-up analysis to make its investments, through its subsidiaries. SEI Investments Company was founded in 1968 and is based in Oaks, Pennsylvania.

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.