Reviewing LPL Financial (NASDAQ:LPLA) and Hercules Capital (NYSE:HTGC)

LPL Financial (NASDAQ:LPLA) and Hercules Capital (NYSE:HTGC) are both finance companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, dividends, valuation, earnings, analyst recommendations, risk and institutional ownership.

Volatility and Risk

LPL Financial has a beta of 0.53, meaning that its stock price is 47% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Hercules Capital has a beta of 0.82, meaning that its stock price is 18% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for LPL Financial and Hercules Capital, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
LPL Financial	0	4	14	0	2.78
Hercules Capital	0	2	5	1	2.88

LPL Financial presently has a consensus target price of $409.81, indicating a potential upside of 23.29%. Hercules Capital has a consensus target price of $18.89, indicating a potential upside of 14.03%. Given LPL Financial’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe LPL Financial is more favorable than Hercules Capital.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares LPL Financial and Hercules Capital”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
LPL Financial	$16.99 billion	1.54	$863.02 million	$12.54	26.51
Hercules Capital	$532.49 million	5.82	$339.74 million	$2.01	8.24

LPL Financial has higher revenue and earnings than Hercules Capital. Hercules Capital is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than LPL Financial, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares LPL Financial and Hercules Capital’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
LPL Financial	5.13%	32.20%	9.35%
Hercules Capital	67.68%	16.01%	7.71%

Dividends

LPL Financial pays an annual dividend of $1.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.4%. Hercules Capital pays an annual dividend of $1.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 9.7%. LPL Financial pays out 9.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Hercules Capital pays out 79.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Hercules Capital has increased its dividend for 1 consecutive years. Hercules Capital is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

95.7% of LPL Financial shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 19.7% of Hercules Capital shares are held by institutional investors. 0.6% of LPL Financial shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 2.0% of Hercules Capital shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

LPL Financial beats Hercules Capital on 10 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.

About LPL Financial

LPL Financial Holdings Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides an integrated platform of brokerage and investment advisory services to independent financial advisors and financial advisors at enterprises in the United States. Its brokerage offerings include variable and fixed annuities, mutual funds, equities, fixed income, alternative investments, retirement and 529 education savings plans, and insurance. The company also provides fee-based platforms that provide access to mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, stocks, bonds, certain option strategies, unit investment trusts, and institutional money managers and no-load multi-manager variable annuities. In addition, it offers money market products; and retirement solutions for commission-and fee-based services that allow advisors to provide brokerage services, consultation, and advice to retirement plan sponsors. Further, the company provides other services comprising tools and services that enable advisors to maintain and grow their practices; trust, investment management oversight, and custodial services for estates and families, as well as insurance brokerage general agency services; and technology products, such as proposal generation, investment analytics, and portfolio modeling. The company was formerly known as LPL Investment Holdings Inc. and changed its name to LPL Financial Holdings Inc. in June 2012. LPL Financial Holdings Inc. was founded in 1989 and is based in San Diego, California.

About Hercules Capital

Hercules Capital, Inc. is a business development company. The firm specializing in providing venture debt, debt, senior secured loans, and growth capital to privately held venture capital-backed companies at all stages of development from startups to expansion stage including select publicly listed companies and select special opportunity lower middle market companies that require additional capital to fund acquisitions, recapitalizations and refinancing and established-stage companies. The firm provides growth capital financing solutions for capital extension; management buy-out and corporate spin-out financing solutions; company, asset specific, or intellectual property acquisition financing; convertible, subordinated and/or mezzanine loans; domestic and international corporate expansion; vendor financing; revenue acceleration by sales and marketing development, and manufacturing expansion. It provides asset-based financing with a focus on cash flow; accounts receivable facilities; equipment loans or leases; equipment acquisition; facilities build-out and/or expansion; working capital revolving lines of credit; inventory. The firm also provides bridge financing to IPO or mergers and acquisitions or technology acquisition; dividend recapitalizations and other sources of investor liquidity; cash flow financing to protect against share price volatility; competitor acquisition; pre-IPO financing for extra cash on the balance sheet; public company financing to continue asset growth and production capacity; short-term bridge financing; and strategic and intellectual property acquisition financings. It also focuses on customized financing solutions, emerging growth, mid venture, and late venture financing. The firm invests primarily in structured debt with warrants and, to a lesser extent, in senior debt and equity investments. The firm generally seeks to invest in companies that have been operating for at least six to 12 months prior to the date of their investment. It prefers to invest in technology, SaaS Finance, energy technology, sustainable and renewable technology, and life sciences. Within technology the firm focuses on advanced specialty materials and chemicals; communication and networking, consumer and business products; consumer products and services, digital media and consumer internet; electronics and computer hardware; enterprise software and services; gaming; healthcare services; information services; business services; media, content and information; mobile; resource management; security software; semiconductors; semiconductors and hardware; and software sector. Within energy technology, it invests in agriculture; clean technology; energy and renewable technology, fuels, and power technology; geothermal; smart grid and energy efficiency and monitoring technologies; solar; and wind. Within life sciences, the firm invests in biopharmaceuticals; biotechnology tools; diagnostics; drug discovery, drug platform, development, and delivery; medical devices and equipment; surgical devices; therapeutics; pharma services; and specialty pharmaceuticals. Within sustainable and renewables, it invests in Vehicle Technology, Energy Generation and Storage, Ag Technology, Advanced Materials, and Industry 4.0. It also invests in educational services. The firm invests primarily in United States based companies and considers investment in the West Coast, Mid-Atlantic regions, Southeast and Midwest, particularly in the areas of software, biotech, and information services. The firm prefers to invest between $5 million and $200 million in equity per transactions. It invests generally between $1 million and $40 million in companies focused primarily on business services, communications, electronics, hardware, and healthcare services. The firm invests primarily in private companies but also have investments in public companies. For equity investments, the firm seeks to represent a controlling interest in its portfolio companies which may exceed 25% of the voting securities of such companies. The firm seeks to invest a limited portion of its assets in equipment-based loans to early-stage prospective portfolio companies. These loans are generally for amounts up to $3 million but may be up to $15 million for certain energy technology venture investments. The firm allows certain debt investments have the right to convert a portion of the debt investment into equity. It also co-invests with other private equity firms. The firm seeks to exit its investments through initial public offering, a private sale of equity interest to a third party, a merger or an acquisition of the company or a purchase of the equity position by the company or one of its stockholders. The firm has structured debt with warrants which typically have maturities of between two and seven years with an average of three years; senior debt with an investment horizon of less than three years; equipment loans with an investment horizon ranging from three to four years; and equity related securities with an investment horizon ranging from three to seven years. The firm prefers to invest through its balance sheet capital. The firm formerly known as Hercules Technology Growth Capital, Inc. Hercules Capital, Inc. was founded in December 2003 and is based in San Mateo, California with additional offices in North America and Europe.