Head-To-Head Review: ECARX (NASDAQ:ECX) & Holley (NYSE:HLLY)

Holley (NYSE:HLLY) and ECARX (NASDAQ:ECX) are both small-cap consumer discretionary companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, dividends, valuation, analyst recommendations, profitability, earnings and risk.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings for Holley and ECARX, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Holley	1	3	3	0	2.29
ECARX	1	1	0	0	1.50

Holley presently has a consensus price target of $4.90, indicating a potential upside of 96.39%. Given Holley’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Holley is more favorable than ECARX.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

39.7% of Holley shares are held by institutional investors. 4.9% of Holley shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 20.0% of ECARX shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Holley and ECARX’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Holley	1.68%	8.41%	3.23%
ECARX	-2.25%	N/A	-2.75%

Risk and Volatility

Holley has a beta of 1.39, meaning that its share price is 39% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, ECARX has a beta of 1.03, meaning that its share price is 3% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Holley and ECARX”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Holley	$613.51 million	0.49	$19.17 million	$0.08	31.19
ECARX	$881.26 million	0.34	-$66.04 million	($0.05)	-16.99

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

Summary

Holley beats ECARX on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Holley

Holley Inc. operates as designer, manufacturer, and marketer of automotive aftermarket products for car and truck enthusiasts in the United States, Canada, Europe, and China. Its products span various automotive platforms and sells across multiple channels. The company's performance automotive products include carburetors, fuel pumps, fuel injection systems, nitrous oxide injection systems, superchargers, exhaust headers, mufflers, distributors, ignition components, engine tuners, automotive performance plumbing products; and exhaust products, as well as shifters, converters, transmission kits, transmissions, tuners, and automotive software. It also offers brakes and brake systems, vehicle restoration parts, helmets, head and neck restraints, seat belts, fire suits, and electronic control and monitoring systems. The company sells its products under the Holley, Holley EFI, MSD, Simpson, Powerteq, Accel, and Flowmaster through DTC, E-tailer, warehouse distributor, traditional retailer, and jobber/ installer channels. Holley Inc. was founded in 1903 and is headquartered in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

About ECARX

ECARX Holdings Inc. develops a full stack automotive computing platform to shape the interaction between people and cars by rapidly advancing the technology by smart mobility worldwide. It offers system on chips, central computing platforms, operating systems, and software. Its core products include infotainment head units, digital cockpits, vehicle chip-set solutions, core operating system, and integrated software stack. The company has entered into a strategic partnership agreement with Black Sesame Technologies. The company is based in Shanghai, the People's Republic of China.