Critical Review: ARTISTdirect (OTCMKTS:ARTD) & Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN)

Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) and ARTISTdirect (OTCMKTS:ARTD) are both retail/wholesale companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their risk, valuation, dividends, analyst recommendations, profitability, institutional ownership and earnings.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

72.2% of Amazon.com shares are owned by institutional investors. 10.8% of Amazon.com shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Amazon.com and ARTISTdirect, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Amazon.com	0	1	47	4	3.06
ARTISTdirect	0	0	0	0	0.00

Amazon.com presently has a consensus price target of $268.69, indicating a potential upside of 19.84%. Given Amazon.com’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe Amazon.com is more favorable than ARTISTdirect.

Profitability

This table compares Amazon.com and ARTISTdirect’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Amazon.com	10.54%	23.84%	11.14%
ARTISTdirect	N/A	N/A	N/A

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Amazon.com and ARTISTdirect”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Amazon.com	$637.96 billion	3.75	$59.25 billion	$6.56	34.18
ARTISTdirect	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

Amazon.com has higher revenue and earnings than ARTISTdirect.

Summary

Amazon.com beats ARTISTdirect on 10 of the 10 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. engages in the retail sale of consumer products, advertising, and subscriptions service through online and physical stores in North America and internationally. The company operates through three segments: North America, International, and Amazon Web Services (AWS). It also manufactures and sells electronic devices, including Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TVs, Echo, Ring, Blink, and eero; and develops and produces media content. In addition, the company offers programs that enable sellers to sell their products in its stores; and programs that allow authors, independent publishers, musicians, filmmakers, Twitch streamers, skill and app developers, and others to publish and sell content. Further, it provides compute, storage, database, analytics, machine learning, and other services, as well as advertising services through programs, such as sponsored ads, display, and video advertising. Additionally, the company offers Amazon Prime, a membership program. The company's products offered through its stores include merchandise and content purchased for resale and products offered by third-party sellers. It serves consumers, sellers, developers, enterprises, content creators, advertisers, and employees. Amazon.com, Inc. was incorporated in 1994 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.

About ARTISTdirect

ARTISTdirect, Inc. operates an online platform that provides music and recorded labels. It offers multi-media content, music news and information, online fan communities, music related commerce, and digital music services. The company also provides iMusic record labels of rock and urban music. ARTISTdirect, Inc. was founded in 1996 and is based in Santa Monica, California.