Comparing Equity Commonwealth (NYSE:EQC) & SITE Centers (NYSE:SITC)

Equity Commonwealth (NYSE:EQC) and SITE Centers (NYSE:SITC) 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.

Volatility and Risk

Equity Commonwealth has a beta of 0.27, indicating that its share price is 73% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, SITE Centers has a beta of 1.61, indicating that its share price is 61% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Equity Commonwealth and SITE Centers, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Equity Commonwealth	0	0	0	0	0.00
SITE Centers	0	7	2	0	2.22

SITE Centers has a consensus price target of $39.38, indicating a potential upside of 156.68%. Given SITE Centers’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe SITE Centers is more favorable than Equity Commonwealth.

Profitability

This table compares Equity Commonwealth and SITE Centers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Equity Commonwealth	82.00%	2.09%	1.96%
SITE Centers	164.10%	34.20%	19.41%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

96.0% of Equity Commonwealth shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 88.7% of SITE Centers shares are held by institutional investors. 2.1% of Equity Commonwealth shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 10.1% of SITE Centers 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.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Equity Commonwealth and SITE Centers”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Equity Commonwealth	$60.52 million	36.16	$91.16 million	$0.39	52.28
SITE Centers	$539.46 million	1.49	$265.70 million	$13.67	1.12

SITE Centers has higher revenue and earnings than Equity Commonwealth. SITE Centers is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Equity Commonwealth, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

SITE Centers beats Equity Commonwealth on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Equity Commonwealth

Equity Commonwealth (NYSE: EQC) is a Chicago based, internally managed and self-advised real estate investment trust (REIT) with commercial office properties in the United States. EQC's portfolio is comprised of four properties totaling 1.5 million square feet.

About SITE Centers

SITE Centers is an owner and manager of open-air shopping centers located in suburban, high household income communities. The Company is a self-administered and self-managed REIT operating as a fully integrated real estate company, and is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol SITC.