Critical Survey: Acadia Healthcare (NASDAQ:ACHC) and Joint (NASDAQ:JYNT)

Acadia Healthcare (NASDAQ:ACHC) and Joint (NASDAQ:JYNT) are both healthcare 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.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings for Acadia Healthcare and Joint, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Acadia Healthcare	2	5	7	1	2.47
Joint	0	3	0	0	2.00

Acadia Healthcare presently has a consensus target price of $29.85, suggesting a potential upside of 9.11%. Given Acadia Healthcare’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts clearly believe Acadia Healthcare is more favorable than Joint.

Volatility and Risk

Acadia Healthcare has a beta of 0.62, meaning that its stock price is 38% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Joint has a beta of 1.05, meaning that its stock price is 5% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Acadia Healthcare and Joint”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Acadia Healthcare	$3.31 billion	0.77	-$1.10 billion	($12.45)	-2.20
Joint	$54.90 million	2.19	$2.91 million	$0.27	31.52

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

Profitability

This table compares Acadia Healthcare and Joint’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Acadia Healthcare	-33.44%	6.19%	2.42%
Joint	6.49%	12.02%	3.47%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

76.9% of Joint shares are held by institutional investors. 1.2% of Acadia Healthcare shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 30.2% of Joint 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.

Summary

Joint beats Acadia Healthcare on 10 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Acadia Healthcare

Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. provides behavioral healthcare services in the United States and Puerto Rico. The company develops and operates acute inpatient psychiatric facilities, specialty treatment facilities comprising residential recovery facilities and eating disorder facilities, comprehensive treatment centers, and residential treatment centers, as well as facilities offering outpatient behavioral healthcare services for the behavioral healthcare and recovery needs of communities. Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Franklin, Tennessee.

About Joint

The Joint Corp. operates and franchises chiropractic clinics in the United States. The company operates in two segments, Corporate Clinics and Franchise Operations. The Joint Corp. was incorporated in 2010 and is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona.