LivePerson (NASDAQ:LPSN) & QuoteMedia (OTCMKTS:QMCI) Critical Review

LivePerson (NASDAQ:LPSN) and QuoteMedia (OTCMKTS:QMCI) are both small-cap computer and technology companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, profitability, dividends, institutional ownership, valuation, analyst recommendations and risk.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

79.8% of LivePerson shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.0% of LivePerson shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 47.1% of QuoteMedia shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for LivePerson and QuoteMedia, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
LivePerson	1	2	0	0	1.67
QuoteMedia	0	0	0	0	0.00

LivePerson currently has a consensus target price of $15.00, suggesting a potential upside of 176.75%. Given LivePerson’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe LivePerson is more favorable than QuoteMedia.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares LivePerson and QuoteMedia”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
LivePerson	$271.75 million	0.20	-$134.27 million	($29.98)	-0.18
QuoteMedia	$18.74 million	0.82	-$1.33 million	($0.03)	-5.66

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

Profitability

This table compares LivePerson and QuoteMedia’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
LivePerson	-62.66%	N/A	-7.86%
QuoteMedia	-12.55%	N/A	-33.71%

Volatility & Risk

LivePerson has a beta of 1.41, suggesting that its stock price is 41% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, QuoteMedia has a beta of 0.42, suggesting that its stock price is 58% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

LivePerson beats QuoteMedia on 7 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About LivePerson

LivePerson, Inc. engages in conversational artificial intelligence. It enables brands to leverage the Conversational Cloud's intelligence engine to connect with consumers through an integrated suite of mobile and online business messaging technologies. The company offers the Conversational Cloud, an enterprise-class digital customer conversation platform, which enables businesses and consumers to connect through conversational channels, such as voice, in-app, and mobile messaging. It also provides professional services; LivePerson's Conversational AI, including conversation builder, manager, and intelligence, and intent manager. In addition, it provides Voice AI, conversational intelligence and insights, and integration services. The company sells its products to Fortune 500 companies, Internet businesses, online merchants, automotive dealers, educational institution, public sector, and not-for-profit organizations. It operates in the United States, Canada, Latin America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the United Kingdom, and the Asia-Pacific. LivePerson, Inc. was incorporated in 1995 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

About QuoteMedia

QuoteMedia, Inc. provides financial data, market research information, analytics, news feeds, and financial software solutions to online brokerages, banks, clearing firms, financial service companies, media portals, and public corporations worldwide. It collects, aggregates, and delivers delayed and real-time financial data content through the Internet. The company also offers market information and services, including streaming stock market data feeds, research and analysis information, content applications, portfolio management systems, software products, corporate investor relations provisioning, news services, mobile apps, and custom development. In addition, its data feeds coverage includes equities, options, futures, commodities, currencies, mutual funds, ETFs, and indices. Further, the company provides financial data delivery application products and components comprising quote modules, charts, market movers, news, watch lists, tickers, market summaries, option chains, filings, fundamentals, investor relations solutions, stock and fund screeners, and others; and QMod, a web delivery system for delivering market data content to Web platforms. Additionally, it offers portfolio managements systems, including Quotestream Desktop, We, and Mobile, a Web-delivered, embedded application providing real-time, tick-by-tick, streaming market quotes and research information; Quotestream Professional that offers low-latency tick-by-tick data, customizable screens, advanced charting, comprehensive technical analysis, news, and research data for financial services professionals; Web Portfolio Manager, which provides immediate web access to detailed quote data, market and company news, charting, depth/level II, filings, historical data, snap quotes, and others; and Quotestream Connect that delivers real time data feeds to individual users to power third party applications. The company was incorporated in 1992 and is headquartered in Fountain Hills, Arizona.