Head to Head Comparison: Bread Financial (NYSE:BFH) versus Marathon Digital (NASDAQ:MARA)

Bread Financial (NYSE:BFH) and Marathon Digital (NASDAQ:MARA) are both mid-cap finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, dividends, institutional ownership, risk, valuation, earnings and analyst recommendations.

Volatility & Risk

Bread Financial has a beta of 1.1, indicating that its share price is 10% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Marathon Digital has a beta of 5.36, indicating that its share price is 436% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

99.5% of Bread Financial shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 44.5% of Marathon Digital shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.3% of Bread Financial shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.0% of Marathon Digital shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Bread Financial and Marathon Digital’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Bread Financial	11.90%	18.79%	2.79%
Marathon Digital	-234.83%	-23.20%	-12.51%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for Bread Financial and Marathon Digital, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Bread Financial	2	4	8	1	2.53
Marathon Digital	2	2	8	0	2.50

Bread Financial presently has a consensus target price of $100.08, suggesting a potential downside of 3.49%. Marathon Digital has a consensus target price of $19.00, suggesting a potential upside of 46.65%. Given Marathon Digital’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Marathon Digital is more favorable than Bread Financial.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Bread Financial and Marathon Digital”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Bread Financial	$3.89 billion	1.08	$518.00 million	$12.21	8.49
Marathon Digital	$907.09 million	5.45	-$1.31 billion	($5.72)	-2.27

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

Summary

Bread Financial beats Marathon Digital on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Bread Financial

Bread Financial Holdings, Inc. provides tech-forward payment and lending solutions to customers and consumer-based industries in North America. It offers credit card and other loans financing services, including risk management solutions, account origination, and funding services for private label and co-brand credit card programs, as well as through Bread partnerships; and Comenity-branded general purpose cash-back credit. The company also manages and services the loans it originates for private label, co-brand, and general-purpose credit card programs, and installment loans and split-pay products; and provides marketing, and data and analytics services. In addition, it offers an enhanced digital suite that includes a unified software development kit, which provides access to its suite of products, as well as promotes credit payment options earlier in the shopping experience. Further, the company through Bread, a digital payments platform and robust suite of application programming interfaces allows merchants and partners to integrate online point-of-sale financing and other digital payment products. It offers its products under the Bread CashbackTM, Bread PayTM, and Bread SavingsTM brands. The company was formerly known as Alliance Data Systems Corporation and changed its name to Bread Financial Holdings, Inc. in March 2022. Bread Financial Holdings, Inc. was incorporated in 1995 and is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio.

About Marathon Digital

MARA Holdings, Inc. operates as a digital asset technology company that mines digital assets with a focus on the bitcoin ecosystem in United States. The company was formerly known as Marathon Digital Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to MARA Holdings, Inc. in August 2024. MARA Holdings, Inc. was incorporated in 2010 and is headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.