Reviewing Amplitude (NASDAQ:AMPL) & CoreCard (NYSE:CCRD)

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

Insider & Institutional Ownership

43.9% of CoreCard shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 73.2% of Amplitude shares are owned by institutional investors. 17.2% of CoreCard shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 4.8% of Amplitude shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares CoreCard and Amplitude”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
CoreCard	$57.40 million	2.60	$3.39 million	$0.67	28.60
Amplitude	$299.27 million	3.54	-$94.32 million	($0.77)	-10.62

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

Volatility & Risk

CoreCard has a beta of 0.49, indicating that its stock price is 51% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Amplitude has a beta of 1.4, indicating that its stock price is 40% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for CoreCard and Amplitude, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
CoreCard	0	1	0	0	2.00
Amplitude	0	4	6	1	2.73

CoreCard currently has a consensus price target of $21.00, indicating a potential upside of 9.60%. Amplitude has a consensus price target of $14.40, indicating a potential upside of 76.04%. Given Amplitude’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Amplitude is more favorable than CoreCard.

Profitability

This table compares CoreCard and Amplitude’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
CoreCard	9.49%	10.52%	8.70%
Amplitude	-31.52%	-32.24%	-21.13%

Summary

Amplitude beats CoreCard on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About CoreCard

CoreCard Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, offers technology solutions and processing services to the financial technology and services market in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. It designs, develops, and markets a suite of software solutions to program managers, accounts receivable businesses, financial institutions, retailers, and processors to manage their credit and debit cards, prepaid cards, private label cards, fleet cards, buy now pay later programs, loyalty programs, and accounts receivable and loan transactions. The company's software solutions allow companies to offer various types of transacting account or card issuing program, as well as installment and revolving loans; set up and maintain account data; record advances and payments; assess fees, interests, and other charges; resolve disputes and chargebacks; manage collections of accounts receivable; generate reports; and settle transactions with financial institutions and network schemes. The company was formerly known as Intelligent Systems Corporation and changed its name to CoreCard Corporation in December 2021. CoreCard Corporation was founded in 1973 and is headquartered in Norcross, Georgia.

About Amplitude

Amplitude, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides a digital analytics platform that analyzes customer behavior in the United States and internationally. It offers Amplitude Analytics, which provides real-time product data and reconstructed user visits; Amplitude Experiment, a solution that allows teams to test new capabilities and safely roll out new features; Amplitude CDP, an insight-driven solution that encompasses the data infrastructure, audience management, and data streaming capabilities; and Amplitude Session Replay used by product, marketing, and data teams to understand user behavior, diagnose product issues, and improve product outcomes. The company also provides customer support services related to initial implementation setup, ongoing support, and application training. It delivers its application over the Internet as a subscription service using a software-as-a-service model. The company was formerly known as Sonalight, Inc. and changed its name to Amplitude, Inc. in December 2014. Amplitude, Inc. was incorporated in 2011 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.