Analyzing Coinbase Global (NASDAQ:COIN) & Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD)

Coinbase Global (NASDAQ:COIN) and Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD) are both finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, analyst recommendations, profitability, earnings, dividends, risk and institutional ownership.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

68.8% of Coinbase Global shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 65.7% of Applied Digital shares are owned by institutional investors. 23.4% of Coinbase Global shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 9.5% of Applied Digital shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Coinbase Global and Applied Digital’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Coinbase Global	40.87%	16.02%	1.86%
Applied Digital	-111.29%	-37.14%	-12.01%

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current recommendations and price targets for Coinbase Global and Applied Digital, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Coinbase Global	2	11	15	1	2.52
Applied Digital	1	0	11	1	2.92

Coinbase Global presently has a consensus target price of $367.94, suggesting a potential upside of 9.50%. Applied Digital has a consensus target price of $22.10, suggesting a potential downside of 35.46%. Given Coinbase Global’s higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Coinbase Global is more favorable than Applied Digital.

Risk & Volatility

Coinbase Global has a beta of 3.68, indicating that its share price is 268% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Applied Digital has a beta of 6.77, indicating that its share price is 577% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Coinbase Global and Applied Digital”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Coinbase Global	$6.56 billion	13.15	$2.58 billion	$10.34	32.50
Applied Digital	$144.19 million	66.42	-$231.07 million	($1.13)	-30.30

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

Summary

Coinbase Global beats Applied Digital on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Coinbase Global

Coinbase Global, Inc. provides financial infrastructure and technology for the crypto economy in the United States and internationally. The company offers the primary financial account in the crypto economy for consumers; and a marketplace with a pool of liquidity for transacting in crypto assets for institutions. It also provides technology and services that enable developers to build crypto products and securely accept crypto assets as payment. The company was founded in 2012 and is based in Wilmington, Delaware.

About Applied Digital

Applied Digital Corporation designs, develops, and operates datacenters in North America. Its datacenters provide digital infrastructure solutions to the high-performance computing industry. The company also provides artificial intelligence cloud services, high performance computing datacenter hosting, and crypto datacenter hosting services. The company was formerly known as Applied Blockchain, Inc. and changed its name to Applied Digital Corporation in November 2022. Applied Digital Corporation is based in Dallas, Texas.