Eagle Point Credit (NYSE:ECC) vs. MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) Head to Head Analysis

Eagle Point Credit (NYSE:ECC) and MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) are both finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, valuation, analyst recommendations, profitability, earnings, dividends and risk.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Eagle Point Credit and MSCI”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Eagle Point Credit	$179.77 million	3.02	$85.49 million	$0.11	64.09
MSCI	$2.99 billion	14.88	$1.11 billion	$15.10	38.05

MSCI has higher revenue and earnings than Eagle Point Credit. MSCI is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Eagle Point Credit, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Dividends

Eagle Point Credit pays an annual dividend of $1.68 per share and has a dividend yield of 23.8%. MSCI pays an annual dividend of $7.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.3%. Eagle Point Credit pays out 1,527.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. MSCI pays out 47.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. MSCI has raised its dividend for 11 consecutive years.

Profitability

This table compares Eagle Point Credit and MSCI’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Eagle Point Credit	6.73%	13.49%	8.59%
MSCI	39.46%	-143.13%	23.46%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings for Eagle Point Credit and MSCI, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Eagle Point Credit	0	1	1	1	3.00
MSCI	0	3	10	0	2.77

Eagle Point Credit currently has a consensus price target of $8.6667, suggesting a potential upside of 22.93%. MSCI has a consensus price target of $654.7273, suggesting a potential upside of 13.95%. Given Eagle Point Credit’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Eagle Point Credit is more favorable than MSCI.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

19.5% of Eagle Point Credit shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 90.0% of MSCI shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.2% of Eagle Point Credit shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 3.3% of MSCI shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Risk & Volatility

Eagle Point Credit has a beta of 0.38, suggesting that its share price is 62% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, MSCI has a beta of 1.29, suggesting that its share price is 29% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

MSCI beats Eagle Point Credit on 12 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Eagle Point Credit

Eagle Point Credit Company Inc. is a closed ended fund launched and managed by Eagle Point Credit Management LLC. It invests in fixed income markets of the United States. The fund invests equity and junior debt tranches of collateralized loan obligations consisting primarily of below investment grade U.S. senior secured loans. Eagle Point Credit Company Inc. was formed on March 24, 2014 and is domiciled in the United States.

About MSCI

MSCI Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides critical decision support tools and solutions for the investment community to manage investment processes worldwide. The Index segment provides indexes for use in various areas of the investment process, including indexed financial product, such as ETFs, mutual funds, annuities, futures, options, structured products, and over-the-counter derivatives; performance benchmarking; portfolio construction and rebalancing; and asset allocation, as well as licenses GICS and GICS Direct. The Analytics segment offers risk management, performance attribution and portfolio management content, application, an integrated view of risk and return service, and an analysis of market, credit, liquidity, counterparty, and climate risk across asset classes; managed services, including consolidation of client portfolio data, review and reconciliation of input data and results, and customized reporting; and HedgePlatform to measure, evaluate, and monitor the risk of hedge fund investments. The ESG and Climate segment provides products and services that help institutional investors understand how ESG impacts the long-term risk and return of their portfolio and individual security-level investments; and data, ratings, research, and tools to help investors navigate increasing regulation. The All Other Private Assets segment includes real estate and infrastructure data, benchmarks, return-analytics, climate assessments and market insights; business intelligence to real estate owners, managers, developers, and brokers; and offers investment decision support tools for private capital. The Private Capital Solutions segment offers tools to help private asset investors across mission-critical workflows, such as sourcing terms and conditions, evaluating operating performance, managing risk and other activities supporting private capital investing. MSCI Inc. was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in New York, New York.