Head-To-Head Comparison: Surgery Partners (NASDAQ:SGRY) versus Fulgent Genetics (NASDAQ:FLGT)

Surgery Partners (NASDAQ:SGRY) and Fulgent Genetics (NASDAQ:FLGT) are both small-cap healthcare companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, earnings, profitability, institutional ownership, risk, valuation and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Surgery Partners and Fulgent Genetics, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Surgery Partners	1	3	7	0	2.55
Fulgent Genetics	1	2	1	0	2.00

Surgery Partners presently has a consensus target price of $19.00, indicating a potential upside of 31.94%. Fulgent Genetics has a consensus target price of $27.50, indicating a potential upside of 23.87%. Given Surgery Partners’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Surgery Partners is more favorable than Fulgent Genetics.

Volatility & Risk

Surgery Partners has a beta of 1.92, indicating that its stock price is 92% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Fulgent Genetics has a beta of 0.93, indicating that its stock price is 7% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Surgery Partners and Fulgent Genetics”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Surgery Partners	$3.37 billion	0.56	-$77.90 million	($0.70)	-20.57
Fulgent Genetics	$322.67 million	1.89	-$60.51 million	($2.82)	-7.87

Fulgent Genetics has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Surgery Partners. Surgery Partners is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Fulgent Genetics, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Surgery Partners and Fulgent Genetics’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Surgery Partners	-2.63%	0.88%	0.34%
Fulgent Genetics	-26.05%	-4.93%	-4.50%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

48.1% of Fulgent Genetics shares are held by institutional investors. 2.0% of Surgery Partners shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 36.2% of Fulgent Genetics shares are held by company 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.

Summary

Surgery Partners beats Fulgent Genetics on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Surgery Partners

Surgery Partners, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, owns and operates a network of surgical facilities and ancillary services in the United States. The company provides ambulatory surgery centers and surgical hospitals that offer non-emergency surgical procedures in various specialties, including orthopedics and pain management, ophthalmology, gastroenterology, and general surgery. It offers diagnostic imaging, laboratory, obstetrics, oncology, pharmacy, physical therapy, and wound care; and ancillary services, including multi-specialty physician practices, urgent care facilities, and anesthesia services. In addition, it offers single- and multi-specialty facilities. Surgery Partners, Inc. was founded in 2004 and is headquartered in Brentwood, Tennessee.

About Fulgent Genetics

Fulgent Genetics, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides clinical diagnostic and therapeutic development solutions to physicians and patients in the United States and internationally. The company’s clinical diagnostic solutions include molecular diagnostic testing; genetic testing; anatomic pathology laboratory tests and testing services, such as gastrointestinal pathology, dermatopathology, urologic pathology, breast pathology, neuropathology, and hematopathology; oncology tests and testing services; and sequencer services related to hereditary cancer, reproductive health, and other diseases. Its therapeutic development solutions focus on developing drug candidates for treating a range of cancers using a nanoencapsulation and targeted therapy platform to enhance the therapeutic window and pharmacokinetic profile of new and existing cancer drugs. The company operates picture genetics platform, which includes gene probes, data suppression and comparison algorithms, adaptive learning software, and proprietary laboratory information management systems that helps customers to identify health markers in their personal DNA. It serves insurance, hospitals, medical institutions, other laboratories, governmental bodies, payors, municipalities and large corporations, and patients. The company was formerly known as Fulgent Diagnostics, Inc. and changed its name to Fulgent Genetics, Inc. in August 2016. Fulgent Genetics, Inc. was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in El Monte, California.