Ability (OTCMKTS:ABILF) vs. Fair Isaac (NYSE:FICO) Critical Survey

Fair Isaac (NYSE:FICO) and Ability (OTCMKTS:ABILF) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, analyst recommendations, risk, profitability, dividends and valuation.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

85.8% of Fair Isaac shares are owned by institutional investors. 3.5% of Fair Isaac shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 40.0% of Ability shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings for Fair Isaac and Ability, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Fair Isaac	0	5	9	2	2.81
Ability	0	0	0	0	0.00

Fair Isaac presently has a consensus target price of $2,076.77, indicating a potential upside of 17.33%. Given Fair Isaac’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Fair Isaac is more favorable than Ability.

Profitability

This table compares Fair Isaac and Ability’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Fair Isaac	32.75%	-43.97%	32.68%
Ability	N/A	N/A	N/A

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Fair Isaac and Ability”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Fair Isaac	$1.99 billion	21.08	$651.95 million	$26.55	66.67
Ability	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

Fair Isaac has higher revenue and earnings than Ability.

Volatility and Risk

Fair Isaac has a beta of 1.29, meaning that its share price is 29% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Ability has a beta of -496.42, meaning that its share price is 49,742% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Fair Isaac beats Ability on 9 of the 11 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Fair Isaac

Fair Isaac Corporation develops analytic, software, and digital decisioning technologies and services that enable businesses to automate, enhance, and connect decisions in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. The company operates in two segments, Scores and Software. The Software segment provides pre-configured analytic and decision management solution designed for various business needs or processes, such as account origination, customer management, customer engagement, fraud detection, financial crimes compliance, and marketing, as well as associated professional services. This segment also offers FICO Platform, a modular software offering designed to support advanced analytic and decision use cases, as well as stand-alone analytic and decisioning software that can be configured by customers to address a wide range of business use cases. The Scores segment provides business-to-business scoring solutions and services for consumers that give clients access to predictive credit and other scores that can be integrated into their transaction streams and decision-making processes, as well as business-to-consumer scoring solutions comprising myFICO.com subscription offerings. It offers FICO Customer Analytics, FICO Responsible AI, FICO Advisors, FICO Business Outcome Simulator, FICO Forecaster, FICO TRIAD Customer Manager, FICO Blaze Advisor, FICO Xpress Optimization, FICO Falcon Fraud Manager, FICO Analytics Workbench, FICO Data Orchestrator, FICO DMP Streaming, FICO Decision Optimizer, and FICO Strategy Director, as well as software implementation and configuration services. The company markets its products and services primarily through its direct sales organization and indirect channels, as well as online. The company was formerly known as Fair Isaac & Company, Inc. and changed its name to Fair Isaac Corporation in July 1992. Fair Isaac Corporation was founded in 1956 and is headquartered in Bozeman, Montana.

About Ability

Ability Inc. provides systems for off-air cellular and satellite interception, and geolocation worldwide. The company engages in the interception of cellular and satellite communication networks for surveillance, border security, anti-terror, anti-crime, intelligence gathering, reconnaissance, target tracking, airport security, and tracking suspicious people for use by the ministries of defense, national agencies, secret services and security officers, federal police forces and presidential police, homeland security organizations, border control forces, integrators, anti-drug organizations and law enforcement units, and ministries of interior and justice, as well as armies, navies, and air forces. It also provides tactical and strategic interception systems for Thuraya, Iridium, and IsatPhone Pro that intercepts voice calls, SMS, data traffic, call related information, and detecting location of satellite phones; and systems to intercept VSAT, DCME, and other satellite links. In addition, the company offers cellular interception systems, which include Unlimited Interceptor, a geolocation system that detects the location of phones participating in intercepted conversations; GoDown, a system in cellular phones to change operational mode and operates as a selective jammer for prison-related projects; and In-Between Interception System that supports GSM, UMTS, and LTE networks. Further, it provides various IMSI catcher configurations and CDMA interception systems. The company was founded in 1994 and is based in Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel.