Contrasting Intuit (NASDAQ:INTU) and ACI Worldwide (NASDAQ:ACIW)

ACI Worldwide (NASDAQ:ACIW) and Intuit (NASDAQ:INTU) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, risk, profitability, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, earnings and valuation.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for ACI Worldwide and Intuit, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
ACI Worldwide	0	1	4	0	2.80
Intuit	1	4	21	1	2.81

ACI Worldwide presently has a consensus price target of $60.00, suggesting a potential upside of 27.06%. Intuit has a consensus price target of $798.13, suggesting a potential upside of 23.15%. Given ACI Worldwide’s higher probable upside, equities analysts clearly believe ACI Worldwide is more favorable than Intuit.

Risk & Volatility

ACI Worldwide has a beta of 1.09, suggesting that its share price is 9% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Intuit has a beta of 1.25, suggesting that its share price is 25% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares ACI Worldwide and Intuit”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
ACI Worldwide	$1.73 billion	2.81	$203.12 million	$2.48	19.04
Intuit	$19.43 billion	9.30	$3.87 billion	$14.63	44.30

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

Profitability

This table compares ACI Worldwide and Intuit’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
ACI Worldwide	14.76%	19.09%	8.63%
Intuit	20.55%	22.72%	12.46%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

94.7% of ACI Worldwide shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 83.7% of Intuit shares are held by institutional investors. 1.1% of ACI Worldwide shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 2.7% of Intuit shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

Intuit beats ACI Worldwide on 13 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About ACI Worldwide

ACI Worldwide, Inc., a software company, develops, markets, installs, and supports a range of software products and solutions for facilitating digital payments in the United States and internationally. The company operates in three segments: Banks, Merchants, and Billers. The company offers ACI Acquiring, a solution to process credit, debit, and prepaid card transactions, deliver digital innovation, and fraud prevention; ACI Issuing, a digital payment issuing solution for new payment offering; and ACI Enterprise Payments Platform that provides payment processing and orchestration capabilities for digital payments. It also provides ACI Low Value Real-Time Payments, a platform for processing real-time payments; and ACI High Value Real-Time Payments, a payments engine that offers multi-bank, multi-currency, 24×7 payment processing, and SWIFT messaging. In addition, the company offers ACI Payments Orchestration Platform for optimizing payments; omni-channel payment platform; ACI Fraud Management, a real-time approach to fraud management; and ACI Speedpay, an integrated suite of digital billing, payment, disbursement, and communication services. The company offers electronic bill presentment and payment services to consumer finance, insurance, healthcare, higher education, utility, government, telecommunications, and mortgage sectors; implementation services, include product installations and configurations, and custom software modifications; and business and technical consultancy, on-site support, product education, and testing services, as well as distributes or acts as a sales agent for software developed by third parties. It markets its products under the ACI Worldwide brand. The company was formerly known as Transaction Systems Architects, Inc. and changed its name to ACI Worldwide, Inc. in July 2007. The company was founded in 1975 and is based in Elkhorn, Nebraska.

About Intuit

Intuit Inc. provides financial management and compliance products and services for consumers, small businesses, self-employed, and accounting professionals in the United States, Canada, and internationally. The company operates in four segments: Small Business & Self-Employed, Consumer, Credit Karma, and ProTax. The Small Business & Self-Employed segment provides QuickBooks services, that includes financial and business management online services and desktop software, payroll solutions, time tracking, merchant payment processing solutions, and financing for small businesses; and Mailchimp services, such as e-commerce, marketing automation, and customer relationship management. This segment also offers QuickBooks online services and desktop software solutions comprising QuickBooks Online Advanced, a cloud-based solution; QuickBooks Enterprise, a hosted solution; and QuickBooks Self-Employed solution; payment-processing solutions, including credit and debit cards, Apple Pay, and ACH payment services; and financial supplies and financing for small businesses, as well as electronic filing of federal and state income tax returns. The Consumer segment provides TurboTax income tax preparation products and services. The Credit Karma segment offers consumers with a personal finance platform that provides personalized recommendations of home, auto, and personal loans, as well as credit cards and insurance products. The ProTax segment provides Lacerte, ProSeries, and ProFile desktop tax-preparation software products; and ProConnect Tax Online tax products, electronic tax filing service, and bank products and related services. It sells products and services through various sales and distribution channels, including multi-channel shop-and-buy experiences, websites and call centers, mobile application stores, and retail and other channels. The company was founded in 1983 and is headquartered in Mountain View, California.