Head to Head Comparison: Retail Opportunity Investments (NASDAQ:ROIC) versus CTO Realty Growth (NYSE:CTO)

Retail Opportunity Investments (NASDAQ:ROIC) and CTO Realty Growth (NYSE:CTO) are both finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, valuation, institutional ownership, risk, profitability, dividends and earnings.

Dividends

Retail Opportunity Investments pays an annual dividend of $0.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.4%. CTO Realty Growth pays an annual dividend of $1.52 per share and has a dividend yield of 7.6%. Retail Opportunity Investments pays out 130.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. CTO Realty Growth pays out 257.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

97.2% of Retail Opportunity Investments shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 67.2% of CTO Realty Growth shares are owned by institutional investors. 3.0% of Retail Opportunity Investments shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 5.3% of CTO Realty Growth shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Retail Opportunity Investments and CTO Realty Growth, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Retail Opportunity Investments	1	6	0	0	1.86
CTO Realty Growth	0	0	1	2	3.67

Retail Opportunity Investments currently has a consensus target price of $16.20, suggesting a potential downside of 7.43%. CTO Realty Growth has a consensus target price of $21.00, suggesting a potential upside of 5.08%. Given CTO Realty Growth’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe CTO Realty Growth is more favorable than Retail Opportunity Investments.

Profitability

This table compares Retail Opportunity Investments and CTO Realty Growth’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Retail Opportunity Investments	17.38%	4.32%	1.96%
CTO Realty Growth	17.10%	4.04%	1.92%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Retail Opportunity Investments and CTO Realty Growth”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Retail Opportunity Investments	$327.73 million	6.88	$34.53 million	$0.46	38.04
CTO Realty Growth	$109.12 million	5.49	$5.53 million	$0.59	33.87

Retail Opportunity Investments has higher revenue and earnings than CTO Realty Growth. CTO Realty Growth is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Retail Opportunity Investments, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility and Risk

Retail Opportunity Investments has a beta of 1.45, meaning that its share price is 45% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, CTO Realty Growth has a beta of 0.78, meaning that its share price is 22% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Retail Opportunity Investments beats CTO Realty Growth on 10 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Retail Opportunity Investments

Retail Opportunity Investments Corp. (Nasdaq: ROIC), is a fully integrated, self-managed real estate investment trust (REIT) that specializes in the acquisition, ownership and management of grocery-anchored shopping centers located in densely populated, metropolitan markets across the West Coast. As of December 31, 2023, ROIC owned 94 shopping centers encompassing approximately 10.6 million square feet. ROIC is the largest publicly-traded, grocery-anchored shopping center REIT focused exclusively on the West Coast. ROIC is a member of the S&P SmallCap 600 Index and has investment-grade corporate debt ratings from Moody's Investor Services, S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings, Inc.

About CTO Realty Growth

CTO Realty Growth, Inc. is a publicly traded real estate investment trust that owns and operates a portfolio of high-quality, retail-based properties located primarily in higher growth markets in the United States. CTO also externally manages and owns a meaningful interest in Alpine Income Property Trust, Inc. (NYSE: PINE), a publicly traded net lease REIT.