Analyzing WSFS Financial (NASDAQ:WSFS) and Oak Valley Bancorp (NASDAQ:OVLY)

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

Insider & Institutional Ownership

30.9% of Oak Valley Bancorp shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 88.5% of WSFS Financial shares are held by institutional investors. 13.9% of Oak Valley Bancorp shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.1% of WSFS Financial shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Volatility and Risk

Oak Valley Bancorp has a beta of 0.21, meaning that its stock price is 79% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, WSFS Financial has a beta of 0.76, meaning that its stock price is 24% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and price targets for Oak Valley Bancorp and WSFS Financial, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Oak Valley Bancorp	0	0	1	0	3.00
WSFS Financial	0	5	3	0	2.38

WSFS Financial has a consensus price target of $83.07, suggesting a potential upside of 4.66%. Given WSFS Financial’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe WSFS Financial is more favorable than Oak Valley Bancorp.

Dividends

Oak Valley Bancorp pays an annual dividend of $0.75 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.2%. WSFS Financial pays an annual dividend of $0.80 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.0%. Oak Valley Bancorp pays out 26.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. WSFS Financial pays out 13.4% 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 raised its dividend for 11 consecutive years and WSFS Financial has raised its dividend for 1 consecutive years. Oak Valley Bancorp is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Oak Valley Bancorp	24.05%	11.31%	1.17%
WSFS Financial	23.34%	11.71%	1.47%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Oak Valley Bancorp and WSFS Financial”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Oak Valley Bancorp	$95.04 million	3.09	$23.91 million	$2.82	12.37
WSFS Financial	$1.10 billion	3.69	$287.35 million	$5.98	13.27

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

Summary

WSFS Financial beats Oak Valley Bancorp on 12 of the 17 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 WSFS Financial

WSFS Financial Corporation operates as the savings and loan holding company for the Wilmington Savings Fund Society, FSB that provides various banking services in the United States. It operates through three segments: WSFS Bank, Cash Connect, and Wealth Management. It offers various deposit products, including savings accounts, demand deposits, interest-bearing demand deposits, money market deposit accounts, and certificates of deposit, as well as accepts jumbo certificates of deposit from individuals, businesses, and municipalities. The company also provides a range of loans, which comprise fixed and adjustable rate residential loans; commercial mortgage and commercial loans; commercial construction loans; commercial loans for working capital, financing equipment and real estate acquisitions, business expansion and other business purposes; and consumer credit products, such as home equity loans, home equity lines of credit, automobile loans, unsecured lines of credit, and other secured and unsecured personal installment loans. In addition, it offers insurance products; planning and advisory services, investment management, trust services, and credit and deposit products to individual, corporate and institutional clients; retail securities and insurance brokerage services; mortgage and title services; residential mortgage and refinancing solutions; and leases small equipment and fixed assets, as well as provides financial planning, customized investment strategies, brokerage products, fiduciary, and wealth management services. Further, the company provides ATM vault cash, smart safe, and other cash logistics services; and online reporting and ATM cash management, predictive cash ordering and reconcilement services, armored carrier management, loss protection, and deposit safe cash logistics services, as well as trustee, agency, bankruptcy administration, custodial and commercial domicile services. The company was founded in 1832 and is based in Wilmington, Delaware.