Comparing AstroNova (NASDAQ:ALOT) and Futu (NASDAQ:FUTU)

AstroNova (NASDAQ:ALOT) and Futu (NASDAQ:FUTU) are both business services companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, analyst recommendations, earnings, dividends, valuation, profitability and institutional ownership.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for AstroNova and Futu, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
AstroNova	1	0	0	0	1.00
Futu	0	2	6	2	3.00

Futu has a consensus price target of $203.67, suggesting a potential upside of 18.89%. Given Futu’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Futu is more favorable than AstroNova.

Profitability

This table compares AstroNova and Futu’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
AstroNova	-11.20%	1.09%	0.58%
Futu	47.11%	30.59%	5.03%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares AstroNova and Futu”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
AstroNova	$151.59 million	0.36	-$14.49 million	($2.25)	-3.20
Futu	$20.84 billion	1.14	$700.73 million	$8.93	19.18

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

Risk and Volatility

AstroNova has a beta of 0.75, meaning that its share price is 25% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Futu has a beta of 0.19, meaning that its share price is 81% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

43.0% of AstroNova shares are held by institutional investors. 12.6% of AstroNova shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 35.2% of Futu shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Futu beats AstroNova on 13 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About AstroNova

AstroNova, Inc. designs, develops, manufactures, and distributes specialty printers, and data acquisition and analysis systems in the United States, Europe, Asia, Canada, Central and South America, and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Product Identification (PI) and Test & Measurement (T&M). The PI segment offers tabletop and production-ready digital color label printers, and OEM printing systems under the QuickLabel brand; digital color label mini-presses and inline printing systems under the TrojanLabel brand; and label materials, tags material, inks, toners, and thermal transfer ribbions under the GetLabels brand. This segment also develops and licenses various specialized software programs to design and manage labels and print images; and provides training and support. This segment serves chemicals, cosmetics, food and beverage, medical products, nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, and other industries; and brand owners, label converters, commercial printers, and packaging manufacturers. The T&M segment offers airborne printing solutions, such as ToughWriter used to print hard copies of navigation maps, arrival and departure information, flight itineraries, weather maps, performance data, passenger data, and various air traffic control data; ToughSwitch, an ethernet switches used to connect multiple computers or Ethernet devices; TMX data acquisition systems; Daxus DXS-100 distributed data acquisition platform; SmartCorder DDX100 portable data acquisition systems for facility and field testing; and Everest EV-5000, a digital strip chart recording system used primarily in aerospace and defense. This segment serves aerospace and aerospace and defense, automotive, commercial airline, energy, manufacturing, and transportation industries. The company was formerly known as Astro-Med, Inc. and changed its name to AstroNova, Inc. in May 2016. AstroNova, Inc. was incorporated in 1969 and is headquartered in West Warwick, Rhode Island.

About Futu

Futu Holdings Limited provides digitalized securities brokerage and wealth management product distribution service in Hong Kong and internationally. It offers online financial services, including securities and derivative trades brokerage, margin financing and fund distribution services through its Futubull and Moomoo digital platforms. The company also provides financial information and online community services; online wealth management services under the Money Plus brand name through its Futubull and moomoo platforms, which provides its client access to mutual funds, private funds, bonds, structured products, and other wealth management products; market data and information services; and NiuNiu Community, which serves as an open forum for users and clients to share insights, ask questions, and exchange ideas. Futu Holdings Limited was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Sheung Wan, Hong Kong.