Comparing Carriage Services (NYSE:CSV) and McGraw Hill (NYSE:MH)

Carriage Services (NYSE:CSV) and McGraw Hill (NYSE:MH) are both consumer discretionary companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, risk, dividends, profitability, analyst recommendations, earnings and valuation.

Volatility & Risk

Carriage Services has a beta of 0.78, suggesting that its stock price is 22% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, McGraw Hill has a beta of -0.85, suggesting that its stock price is 185% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Carriage Services and McGraw Hill’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Carriage Services	10.69%	19.23%	3.71%
McGraw Hill	4.38%	62.57%	8.56%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

66.5% of Carriage Services shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.7% of Carriage Services shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 1.2% of McGraw Hill shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Carriage Services and McGraw Hill”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Carriage Services	$417.44 million	1.23	$51.51 million	$2.79	11.57
McGraw Hill	$2.10 billion	1.21	$35.32 million	$0.50	26.53

Carriage Services has higher earnings, but lower revenue than McGraw Hill. Carriage Services is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than McGraw Hill, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings for Carriage Services and McGraw Hill, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Carriage Services	1	1	3	0	2.40
McGraw Hill	1	2	8	1	2.75

Carriage Services currently has a consensus price target of $51.00, indicating a potential upside of 57.94%. McGraw Hill has a consensus price target of $17.20, indicating a potential upside of 29.67%. Given Carriage Services’ higher possible upside, research analysts plainly believe Carriage Services is more favorable than McGraw Hill.

Summary

Carriage Services beats McGraw Hill on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Carriage Services

Carriage Services, Inc. provides funeral and cemetery services, and merchandise in the United States. It operates in two segments, Funeral Home Operations and Cemetery Operations. The Funeral Home Operations segment provides consultation services; funeral home facilities for visitation and memorial services; transportation services; removal and preparation of remains; sale of caskets and urns; cremation services; and related funeral merchandise. The Cemetery Operations segment sells interment rights for grave sites, lawn crypts, mausoleum spaces, and niches; related cemetery merchandise, including memorial markers, outer burial containers, and monuments; and interments, inurnments, and installation of cemetery merchandise services. Carriage Services, Inc. was founded in 1991 and is based in Houston, Texas.

About McGraw Hill

At McGraw Hill, our purpose is to unlock the potential of each learner at every stage of life. Our mission is to support educators, learners and professionals around the world with trusted, high-quality content and digital solutions that use data and learning science to adapt to each student as they progress towards their goals. McGraw Hill is a leading global provider of information solutions for education across K-12 to higher education, and through professional learning. We harness the power of content, data-driven insights, and learning science to deliver personalized learning experiences and drive positive outcomes throughout the entire learning lifecycle. We believe that we have positively impacted hundreds of millions of learners and educators with our personalized learning solutions to support learning at scale worldwide. On an annual basis, we serve approximately 60 million learners and educators. We believe McGraw Hill is one of the most trusted and recognized education brands in the world. Based on the results of a third-party survey that we commissioned in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2025, we believe that, in the United States, on average, 89% of K-12, higher education and medical school students, faculty and administrators would consider McGraw Hill for their classes. Understanding how learning happens is critical to building effective learning solutions, like ALEKS, which has leveraged data science and machine learning to enhance learning outcomes for over 25 years. Over the last decade, we have invested more than $2.0 billion in developing a suite of market leading digital learning solutions. We utilize our data analytics capabilities to generate continuous feedback loops that drive product and go-to-market innovation, which allows us to simplify workflows while creating meaningful learning experiences that are tailored to the needs of each learner. At McGraw Hill, we recognize that the integrity of educational content is of utmost importance, especially as generative AI becomes more integrated into the learning process. With the proliferation of AI-generated generic content, the risks of inaccurate and low-quality information are heightened, which is why our proprietary content is rigorously researched and designed to meet the highest quality standards. We aim to offer vetted content and data-driven learning solutions that educators and learners can trust. With approximately 1,500 sales professionals worldwide as of March 31, 2025, we believe our global sales force is one of the largest in the education sector, underpinning our ability to serve learners, educators and professionals at scale across the learning lifecycle. Our principal offices are located in Columbus, Ohio.