Comparing Virtus Investment Partners (NASDAQ:VRTS) and Nuveen Municipal Value Fund (NYSE:NUV)

Virtus Investment Partners (NASDAQ:VRTS) and Nuveen Municipal Value Fund (NYSE:NUV) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, risk, earnings, institutional ownership, profitability, dividends and analyst recommendations.

Dividends

Virtus Investment Partners pays an annual dividend of $9.80 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.8%. Nuveen Municipal Value Fund pays an annual dividend of $0.13 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.4%. Virtus Investment Partners pays out 55.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Virtus Investment Partners and Nuveen Municipal Value Fund, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Virtus Investment Partners	2	2	1	0	1.80
Nuveen Municipal Value Fund	0	0	0	0	0.00

Virtus Investment Partners currently has a consensus target price of $145.50, indicating a potential downside of 13.45%. Given Virtus Investment Partners’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Virtus Investment Partners is more favorable than Nuveen Municipal Value Fund.

Risk and Volatility

Virtus Investment Partners has a beta of 1.37, suggesting that its share price is 37% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Nuveen Municipal Value Fund has a beta of 0.38, suggesting that its share price is 62% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Virtus Investment Partners and Nuveen Municipal Value Fund”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Virtus Investment Partners	$819.58 million	1.36	$121.75 million	$17.55	9.58
Nuveen Municipal Value Fund	$104.26 million	18.09	N/A	N/A	N/A

Virtus Investment Partners has higher revenue and earnings than Nuveen Municipal Value Fund.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

80.5% of Virtus Investment Partners shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 22.5% of Nuveen Municipal Value Fund shares are held by institutional investors. 6.4% of Virtus Investment Partners shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.0% of Nuveen Municipal Value Fund shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Virtus Investment Partners and Nuveen Municipal Value Fund’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Virtus Investment Partners	13.42%	21.56%	5.27%
Nuveen Municipal Value Fund	N/A	N/A	N/A

Summary

Virtus Investment Partners beats Nuveen Municipal Value Fund on 11 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Virtus Investment Partners

Virtus Investment Partners, Inc. is a publicly owned investment manager. The firm primarily provides its services to individual and institutional clients. It launches separate client focused equity and fixed income portfolios. The firm launches equity, fixed income, and balanced mutual funds for its clients. It invests in the public equity, fixed income, and real estate markets. The firm also invests in exchange traded funds. It employs a multi manager approach for its products. The firm employs quantitative analysis to make its investments. It benchmarks the performance of its portfolios against the S&P 500 Index. The firm conducts in-house research to make its investments. Virtus Investment Partners, Inc. was founded in 1988 and is based in Hartford, Connecticut.

About Nuveen Municipal Value Fund

Nuveen Municipal Value Fund, Inc. is a closed-ended fixed income mutual fund launched by Nuveen Investments, Inc. The fund is co-managed by Nuveen Fund Advisors LLC and Nuveen Asset Management, LLC. It invests in the fixed income markets of the United States. The fund also invests some portion of its portfolio in derivative instruments. It invests in undervalued municipal securities and other related investments the income, exempt from regular federal income taxes that are rated Baa or BBB or better. It employs fundamental analysis with bottom-up stock picking approach to create its portfolio. The fund benchmarks the performance of its portfolio against the Standard & Poor's (S&P) National Municipal Bond Index. Nuveen Municipal Value Fund, Inc. was formed on April 8, 1987 and is domiciled in the United States.