Analyzing Splunk (NASDAQ:SPLK) and Afterpay (OTCMKTS:AFTPF)

Afterpay (OTCMKTS:AFTPF) and Splunk (NASDAQ:SPLK) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, dividends, profitability, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, risk and valuation.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for Afterpay and Splunk, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Afterpay	0	0	0	0	N/A
Splunk	0	23	5	0	2.18

Splunk has a consensus target price of $135.31, suggesting a potential downside of 13.76%. Given Splunk’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Splunk is more favorable than Afterpay.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

87.6% of Splunk shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.2% of Splunk shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Afterpay and Splunk’s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Afterpay	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Splunk	$4.22 billion	6.27	$263.73 million	$1.26	124.52

Splunk has higher revenue and earnings than Afterpay.

Profitability

This table compares Afterpay and Splunk’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Afterpay	N/A	N/A	N/A
Splunk	6.26%	32,117.42%	7.18%

Summary

Splunk beats Afterpay on 8 of the 8 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Afterpay

Afterpay Limited provides payments solutions for customers, merchants, and businesses. The company operates through Afterpay ANZ, Afterpay US, Clearpay, and Pay Now segments. It offers Afterpay and Clearpay services; and Pay Now services comprising mobility, health, and e-services. The company also operates Genderfree shop. It serves in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The company was formerly known as Afterpay Touch Group Limited and changed its name to Afterpay Limited in November 2019. Afterpay Limited was incorporated in 2017 and is based in Melbourne, Australia.

About Splunk

Splunk Inc., together with its subsidiaries, develops and markets cloud services and licensed software solutions in the United States and internationally. The company offers unified security and observability platform, including Splunk Security that helps security leaders fortify their organization's digital resilience by mitigating cyber risk and meeting compliance requirements; and Splunk Observability, which provides visibility across the full stack of infrastructure, applications, and the digital customer experience. It also provides application programming interfaces, software development kits, and other interfaces that enables its network of third-party developers, partners, and customers to build content, including pre-built data inputs, workflows, searches, reports, alerts, custom dashboards, flexible user interface components, custom data visualizations, and integration actions and methods that configures and extends its solutions to accommodate specific use cases. In addition, the company offers adoption and implementation, education, and customer support services. It sells its offerings directly through field and inside sales, and indirectly through various routes to market with various partners. Splunk Inc. was incorporated in 2003 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. As of March 18, 2024, Splunk Inc. operates as a subsidiary of Cisco Systems, Inc.