Eastern (NASDAQ:EML) & Digimarc (NASDAQ:DMRC) Head to Head Survey

Eastern (NASDAQ:EML) and Digimarc (NASDAQ:DMRC) are both small-cap industrials companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, dividends, earnings, risk, profitability, analyst recommendations and institutional ownership.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for Eastern and Digimarc, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Eastern	0	0	0	0	0.00
Digimarc	0	0	1	0	3.00

Digimarc has a consensus price target of $30.00, indicating a potential upside of 246.42%. Given Digimarc’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Digimarc is more favorable than Eastern.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

77.0% of Eastern shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 66.9% of Digimarc shares are held by institutional investors. 17.0% of Eastern shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 18.7% of Digimarc shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Eastern and Digimarc’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Eastern	-3.06%	10.44%	5.38%
Digimarc	-110.92%	-55.40%	-43.81%

Risk & Volatility

Eastern has a beta of 1, meaning that its share price has a similar volatility profile to the S&P 500.Comparatively, Digimarc has a beta of 1.43, meaning that its share price is 43% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Eastern and Digimarc”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Eastern	$272.75 million	0.53	-$8.53 million	($1.32)	-18.00
Digimarc	$38.42 million	4.89	-$39.01 million	($1.83)	-4.73

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

About Eastern

The Eastern Company designs, manufactures, and sells engineered solutions to industrial markets in the United States and internationally. The company offers turnkey returnable packaging solutions, which are used in the assembly processes of vehicles, aircraft, and durable goods, as well as in production processes of plastic packaging products, packaged consumer goods, and pharmaceuticals; designs and manufactures blow mold tools and injection blow mold tooling products, and 2-step stretch blow molds and related components for the stretch blow molding industry; and supplies blow molds and change parts to the food, beverage, healthcare, and chemical industries. It also provides rotary latches, compression latches, draw latches, hinges, camlocks, key switches, padlocks, and handles; and development and program management services for custom electromechanical and mechanical systems for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and customer applications. In addition, the company designs and manufactures proprietary vision technology for OEMs and aftermarket applications, as well as offers aftermarket components to the heavy- and medium-duty truck, motorhome, and bus markets. The Eastern Company was founded in 1858 and is based in Shelton, Connecticut.

About Digimarc

Digimarc Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides automatic identification solutions to commercial and government customers in the United States and internationally. The company offers Digimarc Validate protects, a cloud-based record of product authentication information; Digimarc Engage, an interactive communications channel connecting brands and consumers; and Digimarc Recycle. Its solutions are used in various application solutions, such as sorting of consumer-packaged goods in recycling streams. The company offers its solutions through its sales personnel and business partners. Digimarc Corporation was incorporated in 2008 and is based in Beaverton, Oregon.