Financial Contrast: Summit State Bank (NASDAQ:SSBI) and First Horizon (NYSE:FHN)

Summit State Bank (NASDAQ:SSBI) and First Horizon (NYSE:FHN) are both finance companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, earnings, valuation, risk, profitability and dividends.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Summit State Bank and First Horizon, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Summit State Bank	1	0	0	0	1.00
First Horizon	1	12	8	0	2.33

First Horizon has a consensus price target of $27.07, indicating a potential upside of 16.45%. Given First Horizon’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe First Horizon is more favorable than Summit State Bank.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Summit State Bank and First Horizon”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Summit State Bank	$58.82 million	1.32	$6.80 million	$0.06	190.50
First Horizon	$5.00 billion	2.20	$982.00 million	$1.39	16.73

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

Volatility and Risk

Summit State Bank has a beta of 0.35, indicating that its share price is 65% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, First Horizon has a beta of 0.61, indicating that its share price is 39% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

80.3% of First Horizon shares are held by institutional investors. 0.9% of First Horizon shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Summit State Bank	0.59%	N/A	N/A
First Horizon	14.35%	12.24%	1.26%

Summary

First Horizon beats Summit State Bank on 13 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 First Horizon

First Horizon Corporation operates as the bank holding company for First Horizon Bank that provides various financial services. The company operates through Regional Banking and Specialty Banking segments. It offers general banking services for consumers, businesses, financial institutions, and governments. The company also accepts deposits; provides underwriting services for bank-eligible securities and other fixed-income securities by financial subsidiaries; sells loans and derivatives; financial planning; and offers investment and financial advisory services. In addition, it offers mortgage banking; loan syndications; brokerage services; commercial and business banking for business enterprises, consumer banking, and private client and wealth management services; capital markets, professional commercial real estate, mortgage warehouse and asset-based lending, franchise and equipment finance, tax credit finance, energy and healthcare finance, asset management, and corporate and correspondent banking services. Further, the company provides transaction processing services including check clearing services and remittance processing, credit cards, investment, and sale of mutual fund and retail insurances, as well as trust, fiduciary, and agency services. First Horizon Corporation was founded in 1864 and is headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee.