Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) & Cars.com (NYSE:CARS) Head-To-Head Survey

Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Cars.com (NYSE:CARS) are both retail/wholesale companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, profitability, earnings, valuation, analyst recommendations, risk and institutional ownership.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current recommendations and price targets for Amazon.com and Cars.com, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Amazon.com	0	1	46	2	3.02
Cars.com	0	1	4	0	2.80

Amazon.com currently has a consensus target price of $262.45, suggesting a potential upside of 22.21%. Cars.com has a consensus target price of $18.30, suggesting a potential upside of 47.28%. Given Cars.com’s higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Cars.com is more favorable than Amazon.com.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

72.2% of Amazon.com shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 89.2% of Cars.com shares are held by institutional investors. 9.7% of Amazon.com shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 2.4% of Cars.com shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Amazon.com and Cars.com”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Amazon.com	$637.96 billion	3.57	$59.25 billion	$6.14	34.98
Cars.com	$719.15 million	1.10	$48.19 million	$0.68	18.27

Amazon.com has higher revenue and earnings than Cars.com. Cars.com is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Amazon.com, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility & Risk

Amazon.com has a beta of 1.31, indicating that its share price is 31% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Cars.com has a beta of 1.76, indicating that its share price is 76% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Amazon.com and Cars.com’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Amazon.com	10.54%	24.90%	11.44%
Cars.com	6.32%	16.86%	7.61%

Summary

Amazon.com beats Cars.com on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. engages in the retail sale of consumer products, advertising, and subscriptions service through online and physical stores in North America and internationally. The company operates through three segments: North America, International, and Amazon Web Services (AWS). It also manufactures and sells electronic devices, including Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TVs, Echo, Ring, Blink, and eero; and develops and produces media content. In addition, the company offers programs that enable sellers to sell their products in its stores; and programs that allow authors, independent publishers, musicians, filmmakers, Twitch streamers, skill and app developers, and others to publish and sell content. Further, it provides compute, storage, database, analytics, machine learning, and other services, as well as advertising services through programs, such as sponsored ads, display, and video advertising. Additionally, the company offers Amazon Prime, a membership program. The company's products offered through its stores include merchandise and content purchased for resale and products offered by third-party sellers. It serves consumers, sellers, developers, enterprises, content creators, advertisers, and employees. Amazon.com, Inc. was incorporated in 1994 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.

About Cars.com

Cars.com Inc., through its subsidiaries, operates as a digital automotive marketplace that connects local car dealers to consumers in the United States. The company offers a suite of digital solutions that creates connections between individuals researching cars or looking to purchase a car with car dealerships and automotive original equipment manufacturers. It also sells online subscription advertising products to car dealerships by its direct sales force, as well as through its affiliate sales channel. In addition, the company sells display advertising to national advertisers. Further, it offers online automotive marketplace service that connects buyers and sellers through Cars.com, Auto.com, DealerRater.com, NewCars.com, PickupTrucks.com, DealerInspire.com, and LaunchDigitalMarketing.com Websites. Its platform hosts approximately 4.9 million new and used vehicle listings and serves approximately 20,000 franchise and independent car dealers. Cars.com Inc. was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.