Acadia Healthcare (NASDAQ:ACHC) and Joint (NASDAQ:JYNT) Head to Head Contrast

Joint (NASDAQ:JYNT) and Acadia Healthcare (NASDAQ:ACHC) are both healthcare companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, risk, earnings, analyst recommendations, valuation, institutional ownership and profitability.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for Joint and Acadia Healthcare, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Joint	0	3	0	0	2.00
Acadia Healthcare	2	5	7	1	2.47

Acadia Healthcare has a consensus target price of $29.85, indicating a potential upside of 9.11%. Given Acadia Healthcare’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Acadia Healthcare is more favorable than Joint.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

76.9% of Joint shares are held by institutional investors. 30.2% of Joint shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.2% of Acadia Healthcare shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Volatility & Risk

Joint has a beta of 1.05, indicating that its stock price is 5% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Acadia Healthcare has a beta of 0.62, indicating that its stock price is 38% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Joint and Acadia Healthcare”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Joint	$54.90 million	2.19	$2.91 million	$0.27	31.52
Acadia Healthcare	$3.31 billion	0.77	-$1.10 billion	($12.45)	-2.20

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

Profitability

This table compares Joint and Acadia Healthcare’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Joint	6.49%	12.02%	3.47%
Acadia Healthcare	-33.44%	6.19%	2.42%

Summary

Joint beats Acadia Healthcare on 10 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Joint

The Joint Corp. operates and franchises chiropractic clinics in the United States. The company operates in two segments, Corporate Clinics and Franchise Operations. The Joint Corp. was incorporated in 2010 and is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona.

About Acadia Healthcare

Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. provides behavioral healthcare services in the United States and Puerto Rico. The company develops and operates acute inpatient psychiatric facilities, specialty treatment facilities comprising residential recovery facilities and eating disorder facilities, comprehensive treatment centers, and residential treatment centers, as well as facilities offering outpatient behavioral healthcare services for the behavioral healthcare and recovery needs of communities. Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Franklin, Tennessee.