News (NASDAQ:NWSA) versus Cinemark (NYSE:CNK) Head-To-Head Contrast

News (NASDAQ:NWSA) and Cinemark (NYSE:CNK) are both consumer discretionary companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, earnings, dividends, analyst recommendations, risk, valuation and institutional ownership.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings for News and Cinemark, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
News	0	0	6	1	3.14
Cinemark	1	2	7	0	2.60

News currently has a consensus target price of $39.20, indicating a potential upside of 33.47%. Cinemark has a consensus target price of $33.20, indicating a potential upside of 11.19%. Given News’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts clearly believe News is more favorable than Cinemark.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

67.0% of News shares are held by institutional investors. 13.6% of News shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 2.3% of Cinemark shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Risk and Volatility

News has a beta of 1.23, suggesting that its share price is 23% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Cinemark has a beta of 1.88, suggesting that its share price is 88% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares News and Cinemark”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
News	$10.09 billion	1.65	$266.00 million	$0.86	34.15
Cinemark	$3.05 billion	1.13	$309.70 million	$1.52	19.64

Cinemark has lower revenue, but higher earnings than News. Cinemark is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than News, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares News and Cinemark’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
News	5.18%	5.64%	3.09%
Cinemark	8.17%	51.68%	5.05%

Dividends

News pays an annual dividend of $0.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.7%. Cinemark pays an annual dividend of $0.32 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.1%. News pays out 23.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Cinemark pays out 21.1% 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. Cinemark is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Summary

Cinemark beats News on 9 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About News

News Corporation, a media and information services company, creates and distributes authoritative and engaging content, and other products and services for consumers and businesses worldwide. It operates through six segments: Digital Real Estate Services, Subscription Video Services, Dow Jones, Book Publishing, News Media, and Other. The company distributes content and data products, including The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, MarketWatch, Investor’s Business Daily, Factiva, Dow Jones Risk & Compliance, Dow Jones Newswires, and Dow Jones Energy through various media channels, such as newspapers, newswires, websites, mobile apps, newsletters, magazines, proprietary databases, live journalism, video, and podcasts. It also owns and operates Monday to Friday, Saturday and Sunday, weekly, and bi-weekly newspapers comprising The Australian, The Weekend Australian, The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph, Herald Sun, Sunday Herald Sun, The Courier Mail, The Sunday Mail, The Advertiser, Sunday Mail, The Sun, The Sun on Sunday, The Times, The Sunday Times, and New York Post, as well as digital mastheads and other websites. In addition, the company publishes general fiction, nonfiction, children’s, and religious books; provides sports, entertainment, and news services to pay-TV and streaming subscribers, and other commercial licensees through satellite and internet distribution; and broadcasts rights to live sporting events. Further, it offers property and property-related advertising and services on its websites and mobile applications; digital real estate services; and financial services. News Corporation was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

About Cinemark

Cinemark Holdings, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the motion picture exhibition business. As of February 16, 2024, it operated 501 theatres with 5,719 screens in 42 states and 13 countries in South and Central America. Cinemark Holdings, Inc. was founded in 1984 and is headquartered in Plano, Texas.