Contrasting Sound Group (NASDAQ:SOGP) & Professional Diversity Network (NASDAQ:IPDN)

Professional Diversity Network (NASDAQ:IPDN) and Sound Group (NASDAQ:SOGP) are both small-cap business services companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, valuation, analyst recommendations, profitability, risk, earnings and institutional ownership.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations for Professional Diversity Network and Sound Group, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Professional Diversity Network	0	0	0	0	N/A
Sound Group	0	0	0	0	N/A

Profitability

This table compares Professional Diversity Network and Sound Group’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Professional Diversity Network	-56.47%	-192.68%	-66.69%
Sound Group	1.69%	8.71%	4.96%

Volatility and Risk

Professional Diversity Network has a beta of 14.9, meaning that its stock price is 1,390% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Sound Group has a beta of 1.74, meaning that its stock price is 74% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

27.8% of Professional Diversity Network shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 1.6% of Sound Group shares are held by institutional investors. 3.5% of Professional Diversity Network shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 25.2% of Sound Group shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Professional Diversity Network and Sound Group’s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Professional Diversity Network	$7.70 million	1.91	-$4.31 million	($0.42)	-3.05
Sound Group	$2.24 billion	0.01	$12.54 million	$0.99	2.69

Sound Group has higher revenue and earnings than Professional Diversity Network. Professional Diversity Network is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Sound Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Sound Group beats Professional Diversity Network on 8 of the 11 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Professional Diversity Network

Professional Diversity Network, Inc. operates online professional networking communities with career resources in the United States. It operates through three segments: Professional Diversity Network (PDN Network), National Association of Professional Women (NAPW Network), and RemoteMore USA (RemoteMore). The company offers online professional job seeking communities that offers recruitment services, such as single and multiple job postings, recruitment media, talent recruitment communities, corporate memberships, hiring campaign marketing and advertising, e-newsletter marketing, and research and outreach services to various cultural groups and employers. It also provides consumer advertising and consumer marketing solutions through advertising and job postings on its websites; and contracted software development services. In addition, the company operates a women-only professional networking organization; and offers companies with talented engineers to provide solutions to their software needs. Professional Diversity Network, Inc. was incorporated in 2003 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

About Sound Group

Sound Group Inc. operates as an audio-centric social and entertainment company. It focuses on building audio platform to connect and communicate. The company, through its product portfolio and in-house technologies, caters to user interest in audio entertainment and social networking. The company was formerly known as LIZHI INC. and changed its name to Sound Group Inc. in January 2024. Sound Group Inc. was founded in 2010 and is based in Singapore.