Critical Analysis: N-able (NYSE:NABL) versus Carbon Sciences (OTCMKTS:DLOC)

N-able (NYSE:NABL) and Carbon Sciences (OTCMKTS:DLOC) are both technology companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, risk, analyst recommendations, profitability, institutional ownership, dividends and earnings.

Profitability

This table compares N-able and Carbon Sciences’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
N-able	-0.88%	3.55%	2.04%
Carbon Sciences	N/A	N/A	N/A

Institutional and Insider Ownership

96.3% of N-able shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.0% of N-able shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.7% of Carbon Sciences shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings for N-able and Carbon Sciences, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
N-able	2	4	2	0	2.00
Carbon Sciences	0	0	0	0	0.00

N-able presently has a consensus target price of $5.08, suggesting a potential upside of 20.38%. Given N-able’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe N-able is more favorable than Carbon Sciences.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares N-able and Carbon Sciences”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
N-able	$511.43 million	1.56	-$18.82 million	($0.02)	-211.00
Carbon Sciences	$30,000.00	N/A	-$4.72 million	($0.01)	N/A

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

Volatility and Risk

N-able has a beta of 0.5, meaning that its share price is 50% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Carbon Sciences has a beta of 2.4, meaning that its share price is 140% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

N-able beats Carbon Sciences on 8 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About N-able

N-able, Inc. provides cloud-based software solutions for managed service providers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and internationally. The company's solutions enable MSPs to support digital transformation and growth within small and medium-sized enterprises. It provides software platform designed to be an integrated, enterprise-grade solution that serves as an operating system for its MSP partners and scales as their businesses grow. In addition, the company offers remote monitoring and management solutions provide MSP partners with visibility and insights into the availability and performance of their customers' networks, infrastructure, devices and applications through a centralized dashboard; data protection as-a-service solutions, such as backup and disaster recovery for servers, virtual machines, workstations, files, data, and key cloud-based applications, as well as multi-tenant platform and secure remote delivery architecture. Further, it offers security services through patch management, endpoint security, managed detection and response, web protection, e-mail security, and archiving and vulnerability assessment solutions. Additionally, the company engages in professional services automation, automation and scripting management, password management policies and reporting, and analytics. N-able, Inc. was incorporated in 2020 and is headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts.

About Carbon Sciences

Digital Locations, Inc. operates as an aggregator, developer, and acquirer of small cell sites and cell towers for 5G services. The company intends to develop a portfolio of sites to meet the expected demand of growing 5G networks. It also provides web-based software, which provides a system and method for identifying wireless communication assets. The company was formerly known as Carbon Sciences, Inc. and changed its name to Digital Locations, Inc. in September 2017. Digital Locations, Inc. was incorporated in 2006 and is based in Santa Barbara, California.