Western Asset High Income Fund II (NYSE:HIX) and Nasdaq (NASDAQ:NDAQ) Head to Head Comparison

Nasdaq (NASDAQ:NDAQ) and Western Asset High Income Fund II (NYSE:HIX) are both finance companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, analyst recommendations, valuation, earnings, risk and dividends.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for Nasdaq and Western Asset High Income Fund II, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Nasdaq	0	1	8	2	3.09
Western Asset High Income Fund II	0	0	0	0	0.00

Nasdaq currently has a consensus price target of $110.30, indicating a potential upside of 10.89%. Given Nasdaq’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Nasdaq is more favorable than Western Asset High Income Fund II.

Dividends

Nasdaq pays an annual dividend of $1.24 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.2%. Western Asset High Income Fund II pays an annual dividend of $0.58 per share and has a dividend yield of 14.8%. Nasdaq pays out 36.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Nasdaq has increased its dividend for 14 consecutive years.

Profitability

This table compares Nasdaq and Western Asset High Income Fund II’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Nasdaq	22.60%	18.38%	7.63%
Western Asset High Income Fund II	N/A	N/A	N/A

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Nasdaq and Western Asset High Income Fund II”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Nasdaq	$8.74 billion	6.36	$1.79 billion	$3.43	29.00
Western Asset High Income Fund II	$46.44 million	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

Nasdaq has higher revenue and earnings than Western Asset High Income Fund II.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

72.5% of Nasdaq shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.6% of Nasdaq shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

Nasdaq beats Western Asset High Income Fund II on 11 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Nasdaq

Nasdaq, Inc. operates as a technology company that serves capital markets and other industries worldwide. It operates in three segments: Capital Access Platforms, Financial Technology, and Market Services. The Capital Access Platforms segment sells and distributes historical and real-time market data; and develops and licenses Nasdaq-branded indices and financial products. This segment also offers investor relations intelligence, governance solutions, and ESG solutions; and insights and workflow solutions, as well as operates listing platforms. The Financial Technology segment offers Verafin, a cloud-based platform to detect, investigate, and report money laundering and financial frauds; surveillance solutions, including a SaaS platform to assist in complying with market rules, regulations, and internal market surveillance policies; AxiomSL, a risk data management and regulatory reporting solution; and Calypso, a front-to-back trading technology solution for the financial market. This segment also handles assets, comprising cash equities, equity derivatives, currencies, various interest-bearing securities, commodities, energy products, and digital currencies; and trade management and colocation services. The Market Platforms segment offers equity derivative trading and clearing, cash equity trading, fixed income and commodities trading and clearing, and currency trading services. This segment operates various exchanges and other marketplace facilities across various asset classes which includes derivatives, commodities, cash equity, debt, structured products, and exchange traded products; and provides clearing, settlement, and central depository services. The company was formerly known as The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. and changed its name to Nasdaq, Inc. in September 2015. Nasdaq, Inc. was founded in 1971 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

About Western Asset High Income Fund II

Western Asset High Income Fund II Inc. is a closed-ended fixed income mutual fund launched and managed by Legg Mason Partners Fund Advisor, LLC. The fund is co-managed by Western Asset Management Company, Western Asset Management Company Limited, and Western Asset Management Company Pte. Ltd. It invests in the fixed income markets across the globe. The fund invests in securities of companies that operate across diversified sectors. It invests in high yield debt securities issued by U.S., foreign corporations and foreign governments. The fund employs a combination of quantitative and fundamental analysis with bottom-up security selection process to create its portfolio. It benchmarks the performance of its portfolio against Barclays Capital U.S. Corporate High Yield 2% Issuer Cap Index and the JPMorgan Emerging Markets Bond Index Global. Western Asset High Income Fund II, Inc. was formed on May 28, 1998 and is domiciled in the United States.