Analyzing MarketWise (NASDAQ:MKTW) & LiveRamp (NYSE:RAMP)

MarketWise (NASDAQ:MKTW) and LiveRamp (NYSE:RAMP) are both small-cap business services companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, dividends, earnings, analyst recommendations, profitability, institutional ownership and risk.

Profitability

This table compares MarketWise and LiveRamp’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
MarketWise	1.71%	-2.54%	2.58%
LiveRamp	8.64%	6.40%	4.87%

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for MarketWise and LiveRamp, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
MarketWise	1	0	1	0	2.00
LiveRamp	0	4	3	0	2.43

MarketWise currently has a consensus price target of $20.00, suggesting a potential upside of 19.33%. LiveRamp has a consensus price target of $39.00, suggesting a potential upside of 32.47%. Given LiveRamp’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe LiveRamp is more favorable than MarketWise.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares MarketWise and LiveRamp”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
MarketWise	$328.12 million	0.82	$5.62 million	$2.29	7.32
LiveRamp	$745.58 million	2.49	-$810,000.00	$1.06	27.77

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

Risk and Volatility

MarketWise has a beta of 0.25, suggesting that its share price is 75% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, LiveRamp has a beta of 1.19, suggesting that its share price is 19% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

23.0% of MarketWise shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 93.8% of LiveRamp shares are owned by institutional investors. 30.0% of MarketWise shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 3.3% of LiveRamp shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

LiveRamp beats MarketWise on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About MarketWise

MarketWise, Inc. operates a content and technology multi-brand platform for self-directed investors in the United States and Internationally. Its platform includes subscription businesses that provides financial research, software, education, and tools to navigate the financial markets. The company offers various investment strategies, such as value investing, income, growth, commodities, cryptocurrencies, venture, crowdfunded investing, biotechnology, mutual funds, options, and trading; investment research product portfolio through a range of media, including desktops, laptops, tablets, and mobile; and financial newsletters. It provides a suite of stock research tools and portfolio management services under the Chaikin Analytics brand; portfolio management software tools under the TradeSmith brand name; and database of accounting-based financial summaries under the Altimetry brand. In addition, the company develops screeners, monitors, portfolio management tools, and proprietary indicators that produce a composite score to rank publicly traded companies. The company was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland.

About LiveRamp

LiveRamp Holdings, Inc., a technology company, operates a data collaboration platform in the United States, Europe, the Asia-Pacific, and internationally. The company operates LiveRamp Data Collaboration platform enables an organization to unify customer and prospect data to build a single view of the customer in a way that protects consumer privacy. Its platform supports various people-based marketing solutions, including data collaboration, activation, measurement and analytics, identity, and data marketplace. The company sells its solutions to enterprise marketers, agencies, marketing technology providers, publishers, and data providers in various industry verticals, such as financial, insurance and investment services, retail, automotive, telecommunications, high tech, consumer packaged goods, healthcare, travel, entertainment, and non-profit. The company was formerly known as Acxiom Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to LiveRamp Holdings, Inc. in October 2018. The company was incorporated in 2018 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.