Reviewing ASE Technology (NYSE:ASX) and POET Technologies (NASDAQ:POET)

ASE Technology (NYSE:ASX) and POET Technologies (NASDAQ:POET) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their risk, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, earnings, valuation, dividends and profitability.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

6.8% of ASE Technology shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 2.0% of POET Technologies shares are held by institutional investors. 22.9% of ASE Technology shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.5% of POET Technologies shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Risk and Volatility

ASE Technology has a beta of 1.68, meaning that its stock price is 68% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, POET Technologies has a beta of 0.53, meaning that its stock price is 47% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares ASE Technology and POET Technologies’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
ASE Technology	7.03%	13.48%	5.48%
POET Technologies	-5,857.02%	-38.88%	-21.84%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for ASE Technology and POET Technologies, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
ASE Technology	0	2	1	0	2.33
POET Technologies	1	0	0	0	1.00

POET Technologies has a consensus target price of $8.00, indicating a potential downside of 13.14%. Given POET Technologies’ higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe POET Technologies is more favorable than ASE Technology.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares ASE Technology and POET Technologies”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
ASE Technology	$20.73 billion	3.59	$1.28 billion	$0.68	49.21
POET Technologies	$1.08 million	1,125.84	-$62.96 million	($0.56)	-16.45

ASE Technology has higher revenue and earnings than POET Technologies. POET Technologies is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than ASE Technology, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

ASE Technology beats POET Technologies on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About ASE Technology

ASE Technology Holding Co., Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, provides semiconductors packaging and testing, and electronic manufacturing services in the United States, Taiwan, Asia, Europe, and internationally. It develops, constructs, sells, leases, and manages real estate properties; produces substrates; offers information software, equipment leasing, investment advisory, and warehousing management services; commercial complex, after-sales, and support services; manages parking lot services; processes and sells computer and communication peripherals, electronic components, telecommunications equipment, and motherboards; and imports and exports goods and technology. ASE Technology Holding Co., Ltd. was founded in 1984 and is based in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

About POET Technologies

POET Technologies Inc. designs, develops, manufactures, and sells discrete and integrated opto-electronic solutions in Canada, the United States, Singapore, and China. It offers integration solutions based on the POET Optical Interposer, a novel platform that allows the seamless integration of electronic and photonic devices into a single multi-chip module using advanced wafer-level semiconductor manufacturing techniques. It also develops photonic integrated components. The company serves the data center, telecommunications, Internet of things and industrial sensing, automotive LIDAR, optical coherence tomography for medical devices, and virtual reality systems markets. The company was formerly known as Opel Technologies Inc. and changed its name to POET Technologies Inc. in June 2013. POET Technologies Inc. was incorporated in 1972 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.