Nu Holdings Ltd. vs PennyMac Financial Services, Inc., two Mortgage Finance stocks. A side-by-side on valuation, growth, margins, returns, and what each price is betting.
Nu earns 25.8% on equity building Latin America's largest digital bank; PennyMac earns 11.7% running American mortgage servicing, and the return gap justifies less of the multiple gap than usual: 32 times earnings against 9.1. PennyMac's economics are unfashionably good, a 23.5% net margin (better than Nu's 17.1%), a 1.4% dividend, and servicing income that cushions origination troughs; its negative 87.9% free-cash figure is loan-flow accounting. Nu is debt-free where PennyMac runs 1.44 turns. The premium buys demographic runway over rate cyclicality, tens of millions of future customers against the Federal Reserve's calendar. Both stories work; only one is priced as if it already had.
Comparison updated 2026-07-10.
| Metric | NU | PFSI |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $13.15 | $86.05 |
| Market cap | $63.0B | $4.6B |
| Sector | Financial Services | Financial Services |
| Stage | Growth | Growth |
| P/E | 32.0 | 9.1 |
| P/B | 8.24 | 1.07 |
| P/S | 5.47 | 2.15 |
| EV/EBITDA | — | 787.9 |
| Revenue growth | +105.9% | +26.0% |
| Gross margin | 45.6% | — |
| Net margin | 17.1% | 23.5% |
| Return on equity | 25.8% | 11.7% |
| Return on assets | 4.0% | 1.6% |
| Dividend yield | — | 1.4% |
| Debt / equity | 0.00 | 1.44 |
| Altman Z (solvency) | 1.12 | 0.36 |
| Piotroski F (quality) | 9 / 9 | 5 / 9 |
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The stronger value is highlighted per metric where one is strictly better on that single number; it is not an overall verdict on either company. For informational and research purposes only. Not investment advice. Not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security. boothcheck is not a registered investment adviser. Past performance does not guarantee future results.