Head-To-Head Analysis: Upbound Group (NASDAQ:UPBD) vs. SoFi Technologies (NASDAQ:SOFI)

Upbound Group (NASDAQ:UPBD) and SoFi Technologies (NASDAQ:SOFI) are both finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, institutional ownership, profitability, valuation, analyst recommendations, risk and dividends.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings for Upbound Group and SoFi Technologies, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Upbound Group	1	2	2	0	2.20
SoFi Technologies	3	10	9	0	2.27

Upbound Group currently has a consensus target price of $30.67, suggesting a potential upside of 61.57%. SoFi Technologies has a consensus target price of $22.55, suggesting a potential upside of 23.78%. Given Upbound Group’s higher probable upside, equities analysts clearly believe Upbound Group is more favorable than SoFi Technologies.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Upbound Group and SoFi Technologies”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Upbound Group	$4.70 billion	0.24	$73.24 million	$1.54	12.32
SoFi Technologies	$3.61 billion	6.51	$481.32 million	$0.48	37.96

SoFi Technologies has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Upbound Group. Upbound Group is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than SoFi Technologies, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Upbound Group and SoFi Technologies’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Upbound Group	1.90%	34.53%	7.69%
SoFi Technologies	14.78%	6.22%	1.22%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

90.3% of Upbound Group shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 38.4% of SoFi Technologies shares are held by institutional investors. 1.2% of Upbound Group shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 2.5% of SoFi Technologies shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Risk & Volatility

Upbound Group has a beta of 1.77, suggesting that its share price is 77% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, SoFi Technologies has a beta of 2.2, suggesting that its share price is 120% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

SoFi Technologies beats Upbound Group on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Upbound Group

Upbound Group, Inc. leases household durable goods to customers on a lease-to-own basis in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. It operates through four segments: Rent-A-Center, Acima, Mexico, and Franchising. The company's brands, such as Rent-A-Center and Acima that facilitate consumer transactions across a range of store-based and virtual channels. It offers furniture comprising mattresses, tires, consumer electronics, appliances, tools, handbags, computers, smartphones, and accessories. It also provides merchandise on an installment sales basis; and the lease-to-own transaction to consumers who do not qualify for traditional financing, the lease to-own transaction through staffed or unstaffed kiosks located in third-party retailer's locations, and other virtual options. It operates retail installment sales stores under the Get It Now and Home Choice names; lease-to-own and franchised lease-to-own stores under the Rent-A-Centre, ColorTyme, and RimTyme names; and company-owned stores and e-commerce platform through rentacenter.com. The company was formerly known as Rent-A-Center, Inc. and changed its name to Upbound Group, Inc. in February 2023. Upbound Group, Inc. was founded in 1960 and is based in Plano, Texas.

About SoFi Technologies

SoFi Technologies, Inc. provides various financial services in the United States, Latin America, and Canada. It operates through three segments: Lending, Technology Platform, and Financial Services. The company offers lending and financial services and products that allows its members to borrow, save, spend, invest, and protect money. It offers personal loans, student loans, home loans, and related services. The company also operates Galileo, a technology platform that offers services to financial and non-financial institution; and Technisys, a cloud-native digital and core banking platform with financial services customers. In addition, it provides SoFi Money offers checking and savings accounts, debit cards, and cash management products; and SoFi Invest, a mobile-first investment platform that provides access to trading and advisory solutions, such as investing and robo-advisory. Further, the company offers SoFi Credit Card that provides cash backs on every purchase; Sofi Relay, a personal finance management product that allows to track all of their financial accounts comprising credit score and spending behaviors; SoFi Protect, which offers insurance product; SoFi Travel, an application that manages travel search and booking experience; SoFi At Work provides financial benefits to employees, including student loan payments made on their employees' behalf; Lantern Credit, a financial services marketplace platform for seeking alternative products and provide product comparisons; and other lending as a service that offers pre-qualified borrower referrals and sells loans to third-party partner. The company was founded in 2011 and is based in San Francisco, California.