Oak Valley Bancorp (NASDAQ:OVLY) and Equity Bancshares (NASDAQ:EQBK) Critical Contrast

Oak Valley Bancorp (NASDAQ:OVLY) and Equity Bancshares (NASDAQ:EQBK) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, institutional ownership, earnings, profitability, analyst recommendations, risk and valuation.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for Oak Valley Bancorp and Equity Bancshares, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Oak Valley Bancorp	0	0	0	0	N/A
Equity Bancshares	0	2	1	0	2.33

Equity Bancshares has a consensus price target of $33.33, suggesting a potential downside of 4.68%. Given Equity Bancshares’ higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Equity Bancshares is more favorable than Oak Valley Bancorp.

Dividends

Oak Valley Bancorp pays an annual dividend of $0.45 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.8%. Equity Bancshares pays an annual dividend of $0.48 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.4%. Oak Valley Bancorp pays out 13.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Equity Bancshares pays out 80.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Oak Valley Bancorp has raised its dividend for 10 consecutive years. Oak Valley Bancorp is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

30.9% of Oak Valley Bancorp shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 71.8% of Equity Bancshares shares are held by institutional investors. 19.3% of Oak Valley Bancorp shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 8.0% of Equity Bancshares shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Oak Valley Bancorp and Equity Bancshares’ top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Oak Valley Bancorp	$87.30 million	2.39	$30.85 million	$3.31	7.54
Equity Bancshares	$227.58 million	2.34	$7.82 million	$0.60	58.28

Oak Valley Bancorp has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Equity Bancshares. Oak Valley Bancorp is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Equity Bancshares, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Oak Valley Bancorp and Equity Bancshares’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Oak Valley Bancorp	31.38%	17.78%	1.49%
Equity Bancshares	3.88%	12.08%	1.04%

Volatility and Risk

Oak Valley Bancorp has a beta of 0.35, suggesting that its share price is 65% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Equity Bancshares has a beta of 0.91, suggesting that its share price is 9% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Oak Valley Bancorp beats Equity Bancshares on 10 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Oak Valley Bancorp

Oak Valley Bancorp operates as the bank holding company for Oak Valley Community Bank that provides a range of commercial banking services to individuals and small to medium-sized businesses in the Central Valley and the Eastern Sierras. The company's deposits products include checking and savings, money market, health savings, and individual retirement accounts, as well as certificates of deposit. It also offers commercial real estate loans, commercial business lending and trade finance, and small business administration lending, as well as consumer loans, including automobile loans, home mortgages, credit lines, and other personal loans. In addition, the company provides online and mobile banking, remote deposit capture, merchant, night depository, extended hours, wire transfer of funds, note collection services, and automated teller machines. The company was incorporated in 1990 and is headquartered in Oakdale, California.

About Equity Bancshares

Equity Bancshares, Inc. operates as the bank holding company for Equity Bank that provides a range of banking, mortgage banking, and financial services to individual and corporate customers. The company accepts various demand, savings, money market, and time deposits. Its loan products include commercial and industrial, commercial real estate, commercial lines of credit, working capital, term, equipment and aircraft financing, acquisition, expansion and development, borrowing base, real estate construction, homebuilder, agricultural, government guaranteed, and other loan products. The company's loan products also comprise 1 4 family residential mortgages, agriculture, consumer, residential real estate mortgage, and agricultural real estate and production loans. It also provides debit and credit cards; insurance brokerage; trust and wealth management; online banking solutions, such as access to account balances, online transfers, online bill payment, and electronic delivery of customer statements; mobile banking solutions comprising remote check deposits with mobile bill pay; ATMs; and treasury management, wire transfer, automated clearing house, and stop payment services. In addition, the company offers cash management deposit products, such as lockbox, remote deposit capture, positive pay, reverse positive pay, account reconciliation services, zero balance accounts, and sweep accounts, as well as banking services through telephone, mail, and personal appointments. It operates a network of branches in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma. Equity Bancshares, Inc. was incorporated in 2002 and is headquartered in Wichita, Kansas.