Guidewire Software (GWRE) versus Its Competitors Financial Review

Guidewire Software (NYSE:GWRE) is one of 954 publicly-traded companies in the “Software” industry, but how does it contrast to its competitors? We will compare Guidewire Software to similar businesses based on the strength of its valuation, profitability, risk, institutional ownership, earnings, dividends and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current recommendations and price targets for Guidewire Software and its competitors, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Guidewire Software	0	5	12	0	2.71
Guidewire Software Competitors	5781	21584	44978	1499	2.57

Guidewire Software currently has a consensus price target of $213.29, indicating a potential upside of 34.84%. As a group, “Software” companies have a potential upside of 27.95%. Given Guidewire Software’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts clearly believe Guidewire Software is more favorable than its competitors.

Risk and Volatility

Guidewire Software has a beta of 1.01, meaning that its share price is 1% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Guidewire Software’s competitors have a beta of 1.34, meaning that their average share price is 34% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Guidewire Software and its competitors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Guidewire Software	9.44%	12.66%	6.73%
Guidewire Software Competitors	-603.24%	26.43%	-8.84%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

41.7% of shares of all “Software” companies are owned by institutional investors. 0.5% of Guidewire Software shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 20.0% of shares of all “Software” companies are owned by 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 Guidewire Software and its competitors top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Guidewire Software	$1.48 billion	$139.28 million	97.04
Guidewire Software Competitors	$1.85 billion	$386.16 million	113.31

Guidewire Software’s competitors have higher revenue and earnings than Guidewire Software. Guidewire Software is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its competitors, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Summary

Guidewire Software competitors beat Guidewire Software on 8 of the 13 factors compared.

Guidewire Software Company Profile

Guidewire Software develops software for property and casualty insurance companies. Its products support core insurance operations, including policy administration, billing and claims management, as well as data analytics and digital customer services. The company offers its applications through Guidewire Cloud and provides related implementation and support services. Its platform includes products such as PolicyCenter, BillingCenter and ClaimCenter, designed to help insurers manage workflows and modernize their technology systems.