Contrasting comScore (NASDAQ:SCOR) & Healthcare Services Group (NASDAQ:HCSG)

Healthcare Services Group (NASDAQ:HCSG) and comScore (NASDAQ:SCOR) 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, profitability, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, dividends, valuation and risk.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

98.0% of Healthcare Services Group shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 42.2% of comScore shares are held by institutional investors. 2.1% of Healthcare Services Group shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 11.1% of comScore shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Healthcare Services Group and comScore”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Healthcare Services Group	$1.72 billion	0.67	$39.47 million	$0.14	113.14
comScore	$356.05 million	0.09	-$60.25 million	($17.45)	-0.37

Healthcare Services Group has higher revenue and earnings than comScore. comScore is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Healthcare Services Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Healthcare Services Group and comScore, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Healthcare Services Group	0	1	3	1	3.00
comScore	0	0	0	0	0.00

Healthcare Services Group currently has a consensus price target of $16.25, indicating a potential upside of 2.59%. Given Healthcare Services Group’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities analysts clearly believe Healthcare Services Group is more favorable than comScore.

Profitability

This table compares Healthcare Services Group and comScore’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Healthcare Services Group	0.61%	11.74%	7.19%
comScore	-19.80%	-1,124.27%	-14.92%

Risk & Volatility

Healthcare Services Group has a beta of 0.66, meaning that its share price is 34% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, comScore has a beta of 1.2, meaning that its share price is 20% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Healthcare Services Group beats comScore on 13 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Healthcare Services Group

Healthcare Services Group, Inc. provides management, administrative, and operating services to the housekeeping, laundry, linen, facility maintenance, and dietary service departments of nursing homes, retirement complexes, rehabilitation centers, and hospitals in the United States. It operates through two segments, Housekeeping and Dietary. The Housekeeping segment engages in the cleaning, disinfecting, and sanitizing of resident rooms and common areas of the customers' facilities, as well as laundering and processing of the bed linens, uniforms, resident personal clothing, and other assorted linen items utilized at the customers' facilities. The Dietary segment provides food purchasing, meal preparation, and professional dietitian services, which include the development of menus that meet the dietary needs of residents; and on-site management and clinical consulting services to facilities. It serves long-term and post-acute care facilities, hospitals, and the healthcare industry through referrals and solicitation of target facilities. The company was incorporated in 1976 and is based in Bensalem, Pennsylvania.

About comScore

comScore, Inc. operates as an information and analytics company that measures audiences, consumer behavior, and advertising across media platforms in the United States, Europe, Latin America, Canada, and internationally. The company provides digital ad solutions, including Media Metrix Multi-Platform and Mobile Metrix, which measure websites and applications on computers, smartphones, and tablets; Video Metrix that delivers measurement of digital video consumption; Plan Metrix, which offers understanding of consumer lifestyle; Total Home Panel Suite, which capture OTT, connected TV, and IOT device usage and content consumption; CCR, which enhances validated campaign essentials verification of mobile and desktop video campaigns; XMedia Enhanced, which provides a deduplicated view of national programming content; Comscore marketing solutions; Lift Models, which measures the impact of advertising on a brand; Survey Analytics, which measure various consumer insights including brand health metrics; and Activation Solutions, including audience activation and content activation. The company's cross platform solutions products and services comprises Comscore TVNational that helps customers understand the performance of network advertising campaigns; Comscore TVLocal allows customers to understand consumer viewing patterns and characteristics; OnDemand Essentials that provides transactional tracking and reporting; Movie Solutions; and Hollywood Software Suite. In addition, it offers custom solutions for planning, optimization, and evaluation of advertising campaigns and brand protection. Further, the company provides products that measure movie viewership and box office results by capturing movie ticket sales in real time or near real time. It serves digital publishers, television networks, movie studios, content owners, brand advertisers, agencies, and technology providers. The company was incorporated in 1999 and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia.