Critical Contrast: Expedia Group (NASDAQ:EXPE) versus GEN Restaurant Group (NASDAQ:GENK)

GEN Restaurant Group (NASDAQ:GENK) and Expedia Group (NASDAQ:EXPE) are both consumer discretionary companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, analyst recommendations, earnings, risk, valuation, profitability and institutional ownership.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

10.2% of GEN Restaurant Group shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 90.8% of Expedia Group shares are owned by institutional investors. 59.1% of GEN Restaurant Group shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 5.2% of Expedia Group shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares GEN Restaurant Group and Expedia Group’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
GEN Restaurant Group	-1.86%	-4.50%	-0.56%
Expedia Group	9.81%	84.33%	7.42%

Volatility and Risk

GEN Restaurant Group has a beta of 0.95, indicating that its stock price is 5% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Expedia Group has a beta of 1.22, indicating that its stock price is 22% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current recommendations for GEN Restaurant Group and Expedia Group, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
GEN Restaurant Group	1	2	1	0	2.00
Expedia Group	0	22	17	0	2.44

GEN Restaurant Group presently has a consensus price target of $4.50, suggesting a potential upside of 125.00%. Expedia Group has a consensus price target of $292.67, suggesting a potential downside of 7.81%. Given GEN Restaurant Group’s higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe GEN Restaurant Group is more favorable than Expedia Group.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares GEN Restaurant Group and Expedia Group”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
GEN Restaurant Group	$209.10 million	0.31	-$3.03 million	($0.74)	-2.70
Expedia Group	$14.73 billion	2.64	$1.29 billion	$11.36	27.94

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

Summary

Expedia Group beats GEN Restaurant Group on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About GEN Restaurant Group

GEN Restaurant Group, Inc. operates restaurants in California, Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada, Texas, New York, and Florida. It offers meats, poultry, and seafood. The company was founded in 2011 and is based in Cerritos, California.

About Expedia Group

Expedia Group, Inc. operates as an online travel company in the United States and internationally. The company operates through B2C, B2B, and trivago segments. Its B2C segment includes Brand Expedia, a full-service online travel brand offers various travel products and services; Hotels.com for lodging accommodations; Vrbo, an online marketplace for the alternative accommodations; Orbitz, Travelocity, Wotif Group, ebookers, CheapTickets, Hotwire.com and CarRentals.com. The company's B2B segment provides various travel and non-travel companies including airlines, offline travel agents, online retailers, corporate travel management, and financial institutions who leverage its travel technology and tap into its diverse supply to augment their offerings and market Expedia Group rates and availabilities to its travelers. Its trivago segment, a hotel metasearch website, which send referrals to online travel companies and travel service providers from hotel metasearch websites. In addition, the company provides brand advertising through online and offline channels, loyalty programs, mobile apps, and search engine marketing, as well as metasearch, social media, direct and personalized traveler communications on its websites, and through direct e-mail communication with its travelers. The company was formerly known as Expedia, Inc. and changed its name to Expedia Group, Inc. in March 2018. Expedia Group, Inc. was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.