Ormat Technologies (NYSE:ORA) versus Oklo (NYSE:OKLO) Critical Survey

Oklo (NYSE:OKLO) and Ormat Technologies (NYSE:ORA) are both energy companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, institutional ownership, dividends, risk, valuation, profitability and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Oklo and Ormat Technologies, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Oklo	2	3	6	2	2.62
Ormat Technologies	0	4	7	1	2.75

Oklo presently has a consensus target price of $63.7778, suggesting a potential downside of 10.29%. Ormat Technologies has a consensus target price of $92.10, suggesting a potential upside of 2.63%. Given Ormat Technologies’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Ormat Technologies is more favorable than Oklo.

Risk & Volatility

Oklo has a beta of 0.6, meaning that its stock price is 40% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Ormat Technologies has a beta of 0.68, meaning that its stock price is 32% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Oklo and Ormat Technologies’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Oklo	N/A	-14.80%	-13.61%
Ormat Technologies	14.49%	5.47%	2.43%

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Oklo and Ormat Technologies”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Oklo	N/A	N/A	-$73.62 million	($0.42)	-169.26
Ormat Technologies	$879.65 million	6.19	$123.73 million	$2.15	41.74

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

Institutional and Insider Ownership

85.0% of Oklo shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 95.5% of Ormat Technologies shares are held by institutional investors. 18.9% of Oklo shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.6% of Ormat Technologies shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Ormat Technologies beats Oklo on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Oklo

Oklo Inc. designs and develops fission power plants to provide reliable and commercial-scale energy to customers in the United States. It also provides used nuclear fuel recycling services. The company was founded in 2013 and is based in Santa Clara, California.

About Ormat Technologies

Ormat Technologies, Inc. engages in the geothermal and recovered energy power business in the United States, Indonesia, Kenya, Turkey, Chile, Guatemala, Guadeloupe, New Zealand, Honduras, and internationally. It operates in three segments: Electricity, Product, and Energy Storage. The Electricity segment develops, builds, owns, and operates geothermal, solar photovoltaic, and recovered energy-based power plants; and sells electricity. The Product segment designs, manufactures, and sells equipment for geothermal and recovered energy-based electricity generation; and provides services relating to the engineering, procurement, construction, operation, and maintenance of geothermal and recovered energy-based power plants. This segment serves contractors; and owners and operators of interstate natural gas pipelines, gas processing plants, and cement plants, as well as companies in other energy-intensive industrial processes. The Energy Storage segment offers battery energy storage systems and related services. Ormat Technologies, Inc. was founded in 1965 and is headquartered in Reno, Nevada.