Comparing Citizens & Northern (NASDAQ:CZNC) and Silvergate Capital (NYSE:SI)

Citizens & Northern (NASDAQ:CZNC) and Silvergate Capital (NYSE:SI) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, risk, profitability, dividends, analyst recommendations and valuation.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Citizens & Northern and Silvergate Capital”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Citizens & Northern	$107.87 million	2.80	$25.96 million	$1.75	11.13
Silvergate Capital	-$609.47 million	-0.02	-$937.91 million	($29.96)	-0.01

Citizens & Northern has higher revenue and earnings than Silvergate Capital. Silvergate Capital is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Citizens & Northern, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Citizens & Northern and Silvergate Capital’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Citizens & Northern	16.50%	9.71%	1.00%
Silvergate Capital	45.10%	8.87%	0.81%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

30.8% of Citizens & Northern shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 94.4% of Silvergate Capital shares are held by institutional investors. 4.5% of Citizens & Northern shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.7% of Silvergate Capital shares are held 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.

Risk & Volatility

Citizens & Northern has a beta of 0.53, meaning that its share price is 47% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Silvergate Capital has a beta of 2.23, meaning that its share price is 123% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Citizens & Northern and Silvergate Capital, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Citizens & Northern	0	1	0	0	2.00
Silvergate Capital	0	0	0	0	0.00

Dividends

Citizens & Northern pays an annual dividend of $1.12 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.7%. Silvergate Capital pays an annual dividend of $2.94 per share and has a dividend yield of 840.6%. Citizens & Northern pays out 64.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Silvergate Capital pays out -9.8% 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. Silvergate Capital is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Summary

Citizens & Northern beats Silvergate Capital on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Citizens & Northern

Citizens & Northern Corp. is a holding company, which engages in community banking. It provides a full range of banking and mortgage services to individual and corporate customers in North Central Pennsylvania and Southern New York State. The firm’s lending products include mortgage loans, commercial loans, and consumer loans. Its deposit products include various types of checking accounts, passbook and statement savings, money market accounts, interest checking accounts, individual retirement accounts, and certificates of deposit. The company was founded in 1864 and is headquartered in Wellsboro, PA.

About Silvergate Capital

Silvergate Capital Corporation operates as a bank holding company for Silvergate Bank that provides banking products and services to business and individual clients in the United States. The company accepts deposit products, including interest and noninterest bearing demand accounts, money market and savings accounts, and certificates of deposit accounts. Its loan products comprise one-to-four family real estate loans, multi-family real estate loans, commercial real estate loans, construction loans, commercial and industrial loans, mortgage warehouse loans, and reverse mortgage loans, as well as consumer loans and other loans secured by personal property. The company also provides cash management services for digital currency-related businesses. Silvergate Capital Corporation was founded in 1988 and is headquartered in La Jolla, California.