Head to Head Review: Axos Financial (NYSE:AX) and MidWestOne Financial Group (NASDAQ:MOFG)

MidWestOne Financial Group (NASDAQ:MOFG) and Axos Financial (NYSE:AX) are both finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, analyst recommendations, earnings, dividends, profitability, risk and institutional ownership.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for MidWestOne Financial Group and Axos Financial, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
MidWestOne Financial Group	0	2	1	0	2.33
Axos Financial	0	2	5	1	2.88

MidWestOne Financial Group presently has a consensus target price of $50.00, suggesting a potential upside of 1.40%. Axos Financial has a consensus target price of $115.67, suggesting a potential upside of 17.83%. Given Axos Financial’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Axos Financial is more favorable than MidWestOne Financial Group.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

65.4% of MidWestOne Financial Group shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 83.8% of Axos Financial shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.5% of MidWestOne Financial Group shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 4.8% of Axos Financial shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares MidWestOne Financial Group and Axos Financial’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
MidWestOne Financial Group	16.66%	10.22%	0.96%
Axos Financial	22.39%	16.96%	1.77%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares MidWestOne Financial Group and Axos Financial”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
MidWestOne Financial Group	$238.84 million	4.26	-$60.29 million	$2.81	17.55
Axos Financial	$2.19 billion	2.54	$490.37 million	$8.47	11.59

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

Volatility and Risk

MidWestOne Financial Group has a beta of 1.07, indicating that its share price is 7% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Axos Financial has a beta of 1.22, indicating that its share price is 22% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Axos Financial beats MidWestOne Financial Group on 13 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About MidWestOne Financial Group

MidWestOne Financial Group, Inc. operates as the bank holding company for MidWestOne Bank that provides commercial and retail banking products and services to individuals, businesses, governmental units, and institutional customers. It offers range of deposit products, including noninterest bearing and interest bearing demand deposits, savings, money market, and time deposits accounts. The company also provides commercial, real estate, agricultural, credit card, and consumer loans; and financing arrangements, such as brokered deposits, term debt, subordinated debt, and equity. In addition, it offers trust and investment services comprising administering estates, trusts, and conservatorships; property and farm management, investment advisory, retail securities brokerage, financial planning, and custodial services; and licensed brokers services. Further, the company provides online and mobile banking, debit cards, automated teller machines, and safe deposit boxes. MidWestOne Financial Group, Inc. was founded in 1934 and is headquartered in Iowa City, Iowa.

About Axos Financial

Axos Financial, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides consumer and business banking products in the United States. It operates through two segments, Banking Business and Securities Business. The company offers deposits products, including consumer and business checking, demand, savings, time deposit, money market, zero balance, and insured cash sweep accounts. It also provides residential single family, multifamily, and commercial mortgage loans; commercial real estate secured loans; commercial and industrial non-real estate, asset-backed, lines of credit, and term loans; automobile loans; fixed rate unsecured loans; and other loans, such as structure settlements, small business administration consumer loans, and securities-backed loans. In addition, the company offers ACH origination, wire transfer, commercial check printing, business bill pay and account transfer; remote deposit capture, mobile deposit, lockbox, merchant, and online payment portal; concierge banking; mobile and text message banking; and payment services, as well as debit and credit cards, and digital wallets. Further, it provides disclosed clearing services; back-office services, such as record keeping, trade reporting, accounting, general back-office support, securities and margin lending, reorganization assistance, and custody of securities; and financing to brokerage customers. The company was formerly known as BofI Holding, Inc. and changed its name to Axos Financial, Inc. in September 2018. Axos Financial, Inc. was incorporated in 1999 and is based in Las Vegas, Nevada.