Western Asset Investment Grade Income Fund (NYSE:PAI) & Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE:ICE) Critical Review

Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE:ICE) and Western Asset Investment Grade Income Fund (NYSE:PAI) are both finance companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, valuation, analyst recommendations, risk, dividends, institutional ownership and profitability.

Dividends

Intercontinental Exchange pays an annual dividend of $2.08 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.3%. Western Asset Investment Grade Income Fund pays an annual dividend of $0.63 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.3%. Intercontinental Exchange pays out 29.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Intercontinental Exchange has raised its dividend for 9 consecutive years.

Risk & Volatility

Intercontinental Exchange has a beta of 0.92, indicating that its stock price is 8% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Western Asset Investment Grade Income Fund has a beta of 0.49, indicating that its stock price is 51% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Intercontinental Exchange and Western Asset Investment Grade Income Fund, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Intercontinental Exchange	0	2	9	1	2.92
Western Asset Investment Grade Income Fund	0	0	0	0	0.00

Intercontinental Exchange currently has a consensus price target of $183.33, suggesting a potential upside of 18.62%. Given Intercontinental Exchange’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Intercontinental Exchange is more favorable than Western Asset Investment Grade Income Fund.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Intercontinental Exchange and Western Asset Investment Grade Income Fund”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Intercontinental Exchange	$12.64 billion	6.86	$3.31 billion	$7.08	21.83
Western Asset Investment Grade Income Fund	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

Intercontinental Exchange has higher revenue and earnings than Western Asset Investment Grade Income Fund.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

89.3% of Intercontinental Exchange shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 19.0% of Western Asset Investment Grade Income Fund shares are held by institutional investors. 0.8% of Intercontinental Exchange shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.0% of Western Asset Investment Grade Income Fund shares are held 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 Intercontinental Exchange and Western Asset Investment Grade Income Fund’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Intercontinental Exchange	30.08%	14.95%	2.77%
Western Asset Investment Grade Income Fund	N/A	N/A	N/A

Summary

Intercontinental Exchange beats Western Asset Investment Grade Income Fund on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Intercontinental Exchange

Intercontinental Exchange, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the provision of market infrastructure, data services, and technology solutions for financial institutions, corporations, and government entities in the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Singapore, India, Abu Dhabi, Israel, and Canada. It operates through three segments: Exchanges, Fixed Income and Data Services, and Mortgage Technology. The company operates regulated marketplaces for listing, trading, and clearing an array of derivatives contracts and financial securities, such as commodities, interest rates, foreign exchange, and equities, as well as corporate and exchange-traded funds; and trading venues, including regulated exchanges and clearing houses. It also offers energy, agricultural and metals, and financial futures and options; and cash equities and equity options, and over-the-counter and other markets, as well as listings and data and connectivity services. In addition, the company provides fixed income data and analytic, fixed income execution, CDS clearing, and other multi-asset class data and network services. Further, it offers proprietary and comprehensive mortgage origination platform, which serves residential mortgage loans; closing solutions that provides customers connectivity to the mortgage supply chain and facilitates the secure exchange of information; data and analytics services; and Data as a Service for lenders to access data and origination information. Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

About Western Asset Investment Grade Income Fund

Western Asset Income Fund is a closed-ended fixed income mutual fund launched and managed by Western Asset Management Company. It is co-managed by Western Asset Management Company Limited. The fund invests in the fixed income markets of the United States. It primarily invests in investment grade debt, including government securities, bank debt, commercial paper, and cash or cash equivalents. The fund benchmarks the performance of its portfolio against the Barclays U.S. Corporate High Yield Index and the Barclays U.S. Credit Index. Western Asset Income Fund was formed on March 22, 1973 and is domiciled in the United States.