Head to Head Survey: Bread Financial (NYSE:BFH) versus Marathon Digital (NASDAQ:MARA)

Marathon Digital (NASDAQ:MARA) and Bread Financial (NYSE:BFH) are both mid-cap finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, risk, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, earnings, valuation and profitability.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for Marathon Digital and Bread Financial, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Marathon Digital	2	2	8	0	2.50
Bread Financial	2	4	8	1	2.53

Marathon Digital currently has a consensus price target of $19.00, suggesting a potential upside of 46.65%. Bread Financial has a consensus price target of $100.08, suggesting a potential downside of 3.49%. Given Marathon Digital’s higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Marathon Digital is more favorable than Bread Financial.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

44.5% of Marathon Digital shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 99.5% of Bread Financial shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.0% of Marathon Digital shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 1.3% of Bread Financial shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Risk & Volatility

Marathon Digital has a beta of 5.36, meaning that its stock price is 436% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Bread Financial has a beta of 1.1, meaning that its stock price is 10% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Marathon Digital and Bread Financial”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Marathon Digital	$907.09 million	5.45	-$1.31 billion	($5.72)	-2.27
Bread Financial	$3.89 billion	1.08	$518.00 million	$12.21	8.49

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

Profitability

This table compares Marathon Digital and Bread Financial’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Marathon Digital	-234.83%	-23.20%	-12.51%
Bread Financial	11.90%	18.79%	2.79%

Summary

Bread Financial beats Marathon Digital on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Marathon Digital

MARA Holdings, Inc. operates as a digital asset technology company that mines digital assets with a focus on the bitcoin ecosystem in United States. The company was formerly known as Marathon Digital Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to MARA Holdings, Inc. in August 2024. MARA Holdings, Inc. was incorporated in 2010 and is headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

About Bread Financial

Bread Financial Holdings, Inc. provides tech-forward payment and lending solutions to customers and consumer-based industries in North America. It offers credit card and other loans financing services, including risk management solutions, account origination, and funding services for private label and co-brand credit card programs, as well as through Bread partnerships; and Comenity-branded general purpose cash-back credit. The company also manages and services the loans it originates for private label, co-brand, and general-purpose credit card programs, and installment loans and split-pay products; and provides marketing, and data and analytics services. In addition, it offers an enhanced digital suite that includes a unified software development kit, which provides access to its suite of products, as well as promotes credit payment options earlier in the shopping experience. Further, the company through Bread, a digital payments platform and robust suite of application programming interfaces allows merchants and partners to integrate online point-of-sale financing and other digital payment products. It offers its products under the Bread CashbackTM, Bread PayTM, and Bread SavingsTM brands. The company was formerly known as Alliance Data Systems Corporation and changed its name to Bread Financial Holdings, Inc. in March 2022. Bread Financial Holdings, Inc. was incorporated in 1995 and is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio.