Financial Survey: Block (XYZ) & Its Rivals

Block (NYSE:XYZ) is one of 340 publicly-traded companies in the “Financial Services” industry, but how does it contrast to its rivals? We will compare Block to similar businesses based on the strength of its earnings, risk, institutional ownership, profitability, dividends, analyst recommendations and valuation.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings for Block and its rivals, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Block	1	10	34	2	2.79
Block Competitors	1986	6966	11751	446	2.50

Block currently has a consensus price target of $100.32, suggesting a potential upside of 17.00%. As a group, “Financial Services” companies have a potential downside of 9.04%. Given Block’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts plainly believe Block is more favorable than its rivals.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Block and its rivals top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Block	$24.19 billion	$1.31 billion	115.87
Block Competitors	$6.38 billion	$1.10 billion	9.82

Block has higher revenue and earnings than its rivals. Block is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its rivals, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

70.4% of Block shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 43.0% of shares of all “Financial Services” companies are held by institutional investors. 11.4% of Block shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 21.7% of shares of all “Financial Services” companies are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Risk & Volatility

Block has a beta of 2.58, indicating that its share price is 158% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Block’s rivals have a beta of 2.51, indicating that their average share price is 151% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Block and its rivals’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Block	1.80%	9.63%	5.34%
Block Competitors	-276.94%	-40.55%	-5.83%

Summary

Block beats its rivals on 12 of the 13 factors compared.

About Block

Block, Inc. is a financial technology company that provides payment and commerce tools to businesses and financial services for consumers. Its products include Square, a platform offering payment processing, point-of-sale software and related business services, and Cash App, which provides person-to-person payments and other financial features. The company also owns Afterpay, a buy-now, pay-later service, and TIDAL, a music and entertainment platform. Block serves businesses and consumers in the United States and other markets, with product availability varying by country.