Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD – Get Free Report) and Upstart (NASDAQ:UPST – Get Free Report) are both finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, earnings, valuation, risk, institutional ownership, dividends and analyst recommendations.
Insider and Institutional Ownership
65.7% of Applied Digital shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 63.0% of Upstart shares are held by institutional investors. 9.5% of Applied Digital shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 17.3% of Upstart shares are held by 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.
Analyst Recommendations
This is a summary of recent ratings for Applied Digital and Upstart, as reported by MarketBeat.com.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| Applied Digital | 1 | 1 | 11 | 3 | 3.00 |
| Upstart | 3 | 6 | 7 | 0 | 2.25 |
Valuation and Earnings
This table compares Applied Digital and Upstart”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| Applied Digital | $144.19 million | 78.52 | -$231.07 million | ($0.74) | -53.54 |
| Upstart | $1.04 billion | 2.73 | $53.60 million | $0.38 | 78.26 |
Upstart has higher revenue and earnings than Applied Digital. Applied Digital is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Upstart, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Profitability
This table compares Applied Digital and Upstart’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| Applied Digital | -52.84% | -15.91% | -4.62% |
| Upstart | 4.34% | 5.63% | 1.49% |
Volatility and Risk
Applied Digital has a beta of 5.69, meaning that its stock price is 469% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Upstart has a beta of 2.26, meaning that its stock price is 126% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Summary
Upstart beats Applied Digital on 9 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.
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.
About Upstart
Upstart Holdings, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates a cloud-based artificial intelligence (AI) lending platform in the United States. Its platform includes personal loans, automotive retail and refinance loans, home equity lines of credit, and small dollar loans that connects consumer demand for loans to its to bank and credit unions. Upstart Holdings, Inc. was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in San Mateo, California.
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