Contrasting Manhattan Associates (NASDAQ:MANH) and Progress Software (NASDAQ:PRGS)

Manhattan Associates (NASDAQ:MANH) and Progress Software (NASDAQ:PRGS) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, analyst recommendations, risk, dividends, earnings and valuation.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and target prices for Manhattan Associates and Progress Software, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Manhattan Associates	1	4	6	0	2.45
Progress Software	0	2	4	0	2.67

Manhattan Associates currently has a consensus price target of $216.67, indicating a potential upside of 7.60%. Progress Software has a consensus price target of $70.00, indicating a potential upside of 51.12%. Given Progress Software’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Progress Software is more favorable than Manhattan Associates.

Profitability

This table compares Manhattan Associates and Progress Software’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Manhattan Associates	20.91%	82.91%	31.38%
Progress Software	5.16%	43.68%	8.01%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

98.5% of Manhattan Associates shares are held by institutional investors. 0.9% of Manhattan Associates shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 3.4% of Progress Software shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Manhattan Associates and Progress Software”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Manhattan Associates	$1.04 billion	11.68	$218.36 million	$3.58	56.25
Progress Software	$940.13 million	2.11	$68.44 million	$1.10	42.11

Manhattan Associates has higher revenue and earnings than Progress Software. Progress Software is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Manhattan Associates, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility and Risk

Manhattan Associates has a beta of 1.12, indicating that its stock price is 12% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Progress Software has a beta of 0.67, indicating that its stock price is 33% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Manhattan Associates beats Progress Software on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Manhattan Associates

Manhattan Associates, Inc. develops, sells, deploys, services, and maintains software solutions to manage supply chains, inventory, and omni-channel operations. It offers Warehouse Management Solution for managing goods and information across the distribution centers; Manhattan Active Warehouse Management, a cloud native and version less application for the associate; and Transportation Management Solution for helping shippers navigate their way through the demands and meet customer service expectations at the lowest possible freight costs; Manhattan SCALE, a portfolio of logistics execution solution; and Manhattan Active Omni, which offers order management, store inventory and fulfillment, POS, and customer engagement tools for enterprises and stores. The company also provides inventory optimization and allocation solutions; technology platform including Manhattan Active Platform solutions, a cloud-native product designed to provide version-less product access; maintenance services, which offers on-premises software licensees with software upgrades for additional or improved functionality and technological advances; and professional services, such as solutions planning and implementation, and related consulting services. In addition, it provides training and change management services; and resells computer hardware, radio frequency terminal networks, radio frequency identification chip readers, bar code printers and scanners, and other peripherals. The company offers products through direct sales personnel and partnership agreements with various organizations. It serves retail, consumer goods, food and grocery, logistics service providers, industrial and wholesale, high technology and electronics, life sciences, and government industries. The company operates in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. Manhattan Associates, Inc. was founded in 1990 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

About Progress Software

Progress Software Corporation develops, deploys, and manages business applications in the United States and internationally. The company offers OpenEdge, an application development platform for running business-critical applications; Chef, a DevOps/DevSecOps automation software; Developer Tools that consists of software development tooling collection, including .NET and JavaScript UI components for web, desktop and mobile applications, reporting and report management tools, and automated testing and mocking tools; Kemp LoadMaster, an application delivery and security product offering cloud-native, and virtual and hardware load balancers; and Sitefinity, a digital experience platform foundation delivering intelligent and ROI-driving tools for marketers. It also provides MOVEit, a managed file transfer software for managing and controlling the movement of sensitive files and securing them both at-rest and in-transit; DataDirect, a secure data connectivity tools for Relational, NoSQL, Big Data and SaaS data sources; WhatsUp Gold, a network infrastructure monitoring software providing complete visibility of all network devices, servers, virtual machines, and cloud and wireless environments to find and fix network problems; Flowmon, a network security and visibility product with automated response across hybrid cloud ecosystems; Corticon, a decision automation platform to transform user experiences by streamlining and automating complex business rules; MarkLogic, a data agility platform to connect data and metadata; and Semaphore, a Semantic AI platform. The company offers project management, implementation, custom software development, programming, and other services, as well as web-enable applications; and training services. It sells its products to end users, independent software vendors, original equipment manufacturers, system integrators, value added resellers, and distributors. The company was founded in 1981 and is headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts.