Reviewing Compass (NYSE:COMP) and PubMatic (NASDAQ:PUBM)

PubMatic (NASDAQ:PUBM) and Compass (NYSE:COMP) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, profitability, institutional ownership, valuation, dividends, analyst recommendations and risk.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares PubMatic and Compass”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
PubMatic	$282.93 million	1.68	-$14.46 million	($0.38)	-26.87
Compass	$6.96 billion	0.91	-$58.50 million	$0.02	423.25

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

Risk & Volatility

PubMatic has a beta of 1.54, suggesting that its share price is 54% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Compass has a beta of 2.45, suggesting that its share price is 145% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

64.3% of PubMatic shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 67.1% of Compass shares are owned by institutional investors. 27.8% of PubMatic shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 2.9% of Compass 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.

Profitability

This table compares PubMatic and Compass’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
PubMatic	-6.21%	-6.98%	-2.60%
Compass	0.17%	1.11%	0.44%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings for PubMatic and Compass, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
PubMatic	1	1	6	1	2.78
Compass	1	4	8	1	2.64

PubMatic currently has a consensus target price of $12.88, indicating a potential upside of 26.10%. Compass has a consensus target price of $12.63, indicating a potential upside of 49.14%. Given Compass’ higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Compass is more favorable than PubMatic.

Summary

Compass beats PubMatic on 10 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About PubMatic

PubMatic, Inc., a technology company, engages in the provision of a cloud infrastructure platform that enables real-time programmatic advertising transactions for digital content creators, advertisers, agencies, agency trading desks, and demand side platforms worldwide. Its PubMatic SSP, a sell-side platform, used for the purchase and sale of digital advertising inventory for publishers and buyers. The company also provides solutions, including OpenWrap, a header bidding solution; Openwrap OTT, a prebid-powered unified bidding solution; Openwrap SDK, an enterprise-grade management tools and analytics; Connect, a solution that provides additional data and insights to publishers and buyers; Activate, which allows buyers to execute direct deals on its platform across publisher inventory; Convert, a commerce media solution; and Identity Hub, an ID management tool for publishers that leverages specialized technology?infrastructure?to simplify the complex alternative identifier marketplace. Its platform supports an array of ad formats and digital device types, including mobile app, mobile web, desktop, display, video, over-the-top (OTT), connected television, and media. The company was incorporated in 2006 and is based in Redwood City, California.

About Compass

Compass, Inc. provides real estate brokerage services in the United States. It operates a cloud-based platform that provides an integrated suite of software for customer relationship management, marketing, client service, operations, and other functionality in the real estate industry. The company offers mobile apps that allow agents to manage their business anytime and anywhere, as well as designs consumer-grade user interfaces, automated and simplified workflows for agent-client interactions, and insight-rich dashboards and reports. It also provides full-service title and escrow/settlement services to real estate agents' clients, real estate companies, and financial institutions relating to the closing of home purchases as well as the refinancing of home loans; and Compass Concierge, a program in which home sellers access to capital to front the cost of home improvement services. The company was formerly known as Urban Compass, Inc. and changed its name to Compass, Inc. in January 2021.Compass, Inc. was incorporated in 2012 and is headquartered in New York, New York.