Contrasting Jeffersonville Bancorp (OTCMKTS:JFBC) and Peoples Financial Services (NASDAQ:PFIS)

Jeffersonville Bancorp (OTCMKTS:JFBC) and Peoples Financial Services (NASDAQ:PFIS) are both finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, earnings, valuation, profitability, risk and dividends.

Risk & Volatility

Jeffersonville Bancorp has a beta of 0.35, meaning that its stock price is 65% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Peoples Financial Services has a beta of 0.44, meaning that its stock price is 56% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

31.7% of Peoples Financial Services shares are owned by institutional investors. 8.4% of Jeffersonville Bancorp shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 3.6% of Peoples Financial Services shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Dividends

Jeffersonville Bancorp pays an annual dividend of $0.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.2%. Peoples Financial Services pays an annual dividend of $1.64 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.2%. Jeffersonville Bancorp pays out 22.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Peoples Financial Services pays out 42.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Peoples Financial Services has raised its dividend for 7 consecutive years. Peoples Financial Services is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Jeffersonville Bancorp and Peoples Financial Services’ revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Jeffersonville Bancorp	$27.45 million	N/A	$11.18 million	$2.64	7.01
Peoples Financial Services	$163.98 million	1.67	$27.38 million	$3.82	10.17

Peoples Financial Services has higher revenue and earnings than Jeffersonville Bancorp. Jeffersonville Bancorp is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Peoples Financial Services, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Jeffersonville Bancorp and Peoples Financial Services’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Jeffersonville Bancorp	N/A	16.91%	1.68%
Peoples Financial Services	16.70%	8.68%	0.77%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations for Jeffersonville Bancorp and Peoples Financial Services, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Jeffersonville Bancorp	0	0	0	0	N/A
Peoples Financial Services	0	0	0	0	N/A

Summary

Peoples Financial Services beats Jeffersonville Bancorp on 9 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Jeffersonville Bancorp

Jeffersonville Bancorp operates as the bank holding company for Jeff Bank that provides community banking services to individuals, small businesses, and local municipal governments primarily in Sullivan County, New York. The company offers various deposit products, such as checking, money market, savings, and NOW, as well as demand and time deposits. It also offers commercial mortgage, farmland, construction, real estate, agricultural, residential mortgage, home equity, installment, debt restructures, and other consumer loans. The company was founded in 1913 and is based in Jeffersonville, New York.

About Peoples Financial Services

Peoples Financial Services Corp. operates as the bank holding company for Peoples Security Bank and Trust Company that provides various commercial and retail banking services. The company accepts money market, negotiable order of withdrawal, savings, individual retirement, demand deposit, and certificates of deposit accounts. It also provides residential real estate, automobile, manufactured housing, personal, and home equity loans; and commercial real estate, working capital, construction, small business administration, and agricultural loans, as well as loans for equipment and other commercial needs, and mineral rights. In addition, the company offers fiduciary and investment services; investment management, IRA trustee, estate administration, living and life insurance trust, trustee under will, guardianship, custodial/IRA custodial, and corporate trust services, as well as pension and profit-sharing plans. Further, it provides wealth management products and services comprising investment portfolio management, estate and business succession planning, annuities, insurance, retirement plan, and tax planning, as well as education funding strategies; and securities, brokerage, and investor services. Additionally, the company offers small business checking and merchant money market accounts, online and telephone banking, business credit cards, merchant line of credit, and financial checkup services; and remote deposit capture, automatic clearing house transaction, cash management, automated teller machine, point of sale transaction, safe deposit box, night depository, direct deposit, and official check services. It serves business, non-profit, governmental, municipal agency, and professional customers, as well as retail customers. Peoples Financial Services Corp. was founded in 1905 and is headquartered in Scranton, Pennsylvania.