Haverty Furniture Companies (NYSE:HVT.A) and Williams-Sonoma (NYSE:WSM) Critical Review

Haverty Furniture Companies (NYSE:HVT.A) and Williams-Sonoma (NYSE:WSM) are both retail/wholesale companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, earnings, institutional ownership, risk, profitability, valuation and analyst recommendations.

Risk and Volatility

Haverty Furniture Companies has a beta of 1.17, meaning that its share price is 17% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Williams-Sonoma has a beta of 1.45, meaning that its share price is 45% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current recommendations for Haverty Furniture Companies and Williams-Sonoma, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Haverty Furniture Companies	0	0	0	0	0.00
Williams-Sonoma	1	11	6	1	2.37

Williams-Sonoma has a consensus price target of $176.75, suggesting a potential upside of 3.78%. Given Williams-Sonoma’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Williams-Sonoma is more favorable than Haverty Furniture Companies.

Dividends

Haverty Furniture Companies pays an annual dividend of $1.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.7%. Williams-Sonoma pays an annual dividend of $2.64 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.6%. Haverty Furniture Companies pays out 95.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Williams-Sonoma pays out 29.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Williams-Sonoma has raised its dividend for 20 consecutive years.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Haverty Furniture Companies and Williams-Sonoma”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Haverty Furniture Companies	$722.90 million	0.47	$20.35 million	$1.26	16.72
Williams-Sonoma	$7.71 billion	2.72	$1.13 billion	$8.83	19.29

Williams-Sonoma has higher revenue and earnings than Haverty Furniture Companies. Haverty Furniture Companies is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Williams-Sonoma, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

0.8% of Haverty Furniture Companies shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 99.3% of Williams-Sonoma shares are held by institutional investors. 8.1% of Haverty Furniture Companies shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.1% of Williams-Sonoma shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Haverty Furniture Companies and Williams-Sonoma’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Haverty Furniture Companies	N/A	N/A	N/A
Williams-Sonoma	14.35%	52.79%	21.64%

Summary

Williams-Sonoma beats Haverty Furniture Companies on 16 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Haverty Furniture Companies

Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. operates as a specialty retailer of residential furniture and accessories in the United States. The company offers furniture merchandise under the Havertys brand name. It also provides custom upholstery products and eclectic looks; and mattress product lines under the Sealy, Tempur-Pedic, and Serta names, as well as private label Skye name. The company sells home furnishings through its retail stores, as well as through its Website. As of February 23, 2021, it operated 120 showrooms in 16 states in the Southern and Midwestern regions. Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. was founded in 1885 and is based in Atlanta, Georgia.

About Williams-Sonoma

Williams-Sonoma, Inc. operates as an omni-channel specialty retailer of various products for home. It offers cooking, dining, and entertaining products, such as cookware, tools, electrics, cutlery, tabletop and bar, outdoor, furniture, and a library of cookbooks under the Williams Sonoma Home brand, as well as home furnishings and decorative accessories under the Williams Sonoma lifestyle brand; and furniture, bedding, lighting, rugs, table essentials, and decorative accessories under the Pottery Barn brand. The company also provides home decor products under the West Elm brand; kids accessories under the Pottery Barn Kids brand; and an organic bedding to multi-purpose furniture under the Pottery Barn Teen brand. In addition, it offers made-to-order lighting, hardware, furniture, and home decors inspired by history under the Rejuvenation brand; personalized products and custom gifts under the Mark and Graham brand; and colorful and vintage-inspired heirloom products under the GreenRow, as well as operates a 3-D imaging and augmented reality platform for the home furnishings and décor industry under the Outward brand. The company markets its products through e-commerce websites, direct-mail catalogs, and retail stores. Williams-Sonoma, Inc. was founded in 1956 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.