Critical Review: Summit State Bank (NASDAQ:SSBI) & Plumas Bancorp (NASDAQ:PLBC)

Summit State Bank (NASDAQ:SSBI) and Plumas Bancorp (NASDAQ:PLBC) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, dividends, risk, earnings, profitability and valuation.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

41.7% of Plumas Bancorp shares are held by institutional investors. 9.0% of Plumas Bancorp shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Risk & Volatility

Summit State Bank has a beta of 0.21, indicating that its stock price is 79% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Plumas Bancorp has a beta of 0.68, indicating that its stock price is 32% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Summit State Bank and Plumas Bancorp’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Summit State Bank	-1.70%	N/A	N/A
Plumas Bancorp	30.81%	15.71%	1.78%

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and price targets for Summit State Bank and Plumas Bancorp, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Summit State Bank	1	0	0	0	1.00
Plumas Bancorp	0	0	4	0	3.00

Plumas Bancorp has a consensus target price of $58.00, suggesting a potential upside of 35.70%. Given Plumas Bancorp’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Plumas Bancorp is more favorable than Summit State Bank.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Summit State Bank and Plumas Bancorp”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Summit State Bank	$62.91 million	1.27	-$3.66 million	($0.16)	-73.94
Plumas Bancorp	$93.11 million	3.19	$28.62 million	$4.85	8.81

Plumas Bancorp has higher revenue and earnings than Summit State Bank. Summit State Bank is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Plumas Bancorp, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Plumas Bancorp beats Summit State Bank on 14 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Summit State Bank

Summit State Bank engages in providing an array of financial services to small and medium-sized businesses, their owners and employees, entrepreneurs, high net worth families, foundations, estates, and individual consumers. It specializes in business services, personal accounts, nonprofit programs, and mobile banking ranging from lending, checking, merchant, eBanking, automated teller machines, equity loans, and others. The company was founded on December 20, 1982 and is headquartered in Santa Rosa, CA.

About Plumas Bancorp

Plumas Bancorp operates as the bank holding company for the Plumas Bank that provides various banking products and services for small and middle market businesses, and individuals in Northeastern California and Northwestern Nevada. The company accepts various deposits, such as checking, money market checking, business sweep, public funds sweep, savings, time deposit, and retirement accounts. Its loan portfolio comprises of term real estate, commercial, and industrial term loans; government-guaranteed and agricultural loans, as well as credit lines; consumer, automobile, and home equity loans; land development and construction loans; and small business administration loans. In addition, the company provides remote deposit, telephone and mobile banking, internet banking with bill-pay options, cashier's check, bank-by-mail, automated teller machine, night depository, safe deposit box, direct deposit, electronic funds transfer, and other customary banking services. Plumas Bancorp was founded in 1980 and is headquartered in Reno, Nevada.