Walker & Dunlop (NYSE:WD) vs. TaoWeave (NASDAQ:TWAV) Head to Head Contrast

Walker & Dunlop (NYSE:WD) and TaoWeave (NASDAQ:TWAV) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, dividends, institutional ownership, risk, valuation, earnings and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for Walker & Dunlop and TaoWeave, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Walker & Dunlop	0	2	5	0	2.71
TaoWeave	1	0	0	0	1.00

Walker & Dunlop presently has a consensus target price of $77.20, indicating a potential upside of 78.25%. Given Walker & Dunlop’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts plainly believe Walker & Dunlop is more favorable than TaoWeave.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

81.0% of Walker & Dunlop shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 2.0% of TaoWeave shares are held by institutional investors. 4.0% of Walker & Dunlop shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 2.7% of TaoWeave shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Risk & Volatility

Walker & Dunlop has a beta of 1.49, suggesting that its stock price is 49% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, TaoWeave has a beta of 2.52, suggesting that its stock price is 152% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Walker & Dunlop and TaoWeave’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Walker & Dunlop	2.94%	7.25%	2.31%
TaoWeave	-272.06%	-99.07%	-87.12%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Walker & Dunlop and TaoWeave”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Walker & Dunlop	$1.23 billion	1.20	$57.08 million	$1.12	38.67
TaoWeave	$2.52 million	1.88	-$6.36 million	($1.14)	-1.20

Walker & Dunlop has higher revenue and earnings than TaoWeave. TaoWeave is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Walker & Dunlop, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Walker & Dunlop beats TaoWeave on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Walker & Dunlop

Walker & Dunlop, Inc. is a holding company, which engages in the provision of commercial real estate and finance services. It operates through the following segments: Capital Markets, Servicing and Asset Management, and Corporate. The Capital Markets segment offers a comprehensive range of commercial real estate finance products to customers. The Servicing and Asset Management segment includes servicing and asset-managing and managing third-party capital investments. The Corporate segment consists primarily of the company’s treasury operations and other corporate-level activities. The company was founded by Oliver Walker and Laird Dunlop in 1937 and is headquartered in Bethesda, MD.

About TaoWeave

Oblong Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides multi-stream collaboration technologies and managed services for video collaboration and network applications in the United States and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Collaboration Products and Managed Services. Its flagship product is Mezzanine that enables visual collaboration across multi-users, multi-screens, multi-devices, and multi-locations for video telepresence, laptop and application sharing, and whiteboard sharing and slides applications. The company also provides managed videoconferencing services; and remote service management, which provides an overlay to enterprise information technology and channel partner support organizations, as well as support and management services for customer video environments. In addition, it offers network services comprising Cloud Connect: Video that allows its customers to outsource the management of their video traffic to them and provides the customer’s office locations with a secure, dedicated video network connection to the Oblong Cloud for video communications; Cloud Connect: Converge, which offers customized multiprotocol label switching solutions; and Cloud Connect: Cross Connect that allows the customer to leverage existing carrier for the extension of a Layer 2 private line to its data center. Further, it provides professional services, such as software development, visual and interaction design, engineering, and project support services; and resells video equipment to its customers. Oblong Inc. is based in Conifer, Colorado.