Ceridian HCM (NYSE:CDAY) and Zapata Computing (NASDAQ:ZPTA) Critical Review

Volatility and Risk

Ceridian HCM has a beta of 1.38, indicating that its stock price is 38% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Zapata Computing has a beta of 24.64, indicating that its stock price is 2,364% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Ceridian HCM and Zapata Computing’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Ceridian HCM	0.28%	2.03%	0.51%
Zapata Computing	N/A	N/A	-60.05%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Ceridian HCM and Zapata Computing”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Ceridian HCM	$1.45 billion	7.37	-$73.40 million	$0.03	2,282.67
Zapata Computing	$5.68 million	1.02	-$860,000.00	($4.57)	-0.03

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

Institutional and Insider Ownership

51.2% of Zapata Computing shares are held by institutional investors. 4.5% of Ceridian HCM shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.0% of Zapata Computing shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Ceridian HCM beats Zapata Computing on 8 of the 11 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Ceridian HCM

Ceridian HCM Holding Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as a human capital management (HCM) software company in the United States, Canada, and internationally. It offers Dayforce, a cloud HCM platform that provides human resources, payroll, benefits, workforce management, and talent management functionality; and Powerpay, a cloud HR and payroll solution for the small business market. The company also provides Bureau solutions for payroll and payroll-related services. It sells its solutions through direct sales force and third-party channels. The company was incorporated in 2013 and is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

About Zapata Computing

Zapata Computing Holdings Inc. operates as an industrial generative artificial intelligence (AI) software company in the United States. The company offers subscription-based solutions that combine software and services to develop generative AI applications, as well as accompanying services to solve complex industrial problems. It also provides Zapata AI Sense, a suite of algorithms and complex mathematical models to enhance analytics and other data-driven applications; Zapata AI Prose, a set of generative AI solutions based on large language models for generic chatbot applications; and Orquestra, an industrial generative AI application development platform, which provides sense and prose. It serves enterprise organizations. Zapata Computing Holdings Inc. was founded in 2017 and is based in Boston, Massachusetts.