Reviewing ATIF (NASDAQ:ZBAI) & Huron Consulting Group (NASDAQ:HURN)

ATIF (NASDAQ:ZBAI) and Huron Consulting Group (NASDAQ:HURN) are both business services companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, valuation, institutional ownership, risk, profitability, dividends and earnings.

Profitability

This table compares ATIF and Huron Consulting Group’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
ATIF	N/A	-90.49%	-79.46%
Huron Consulting Group	6.54%	27.06%	9.58%

Risk and Volatility

ATIF has a beta of -0.64, suggesting that its share price is 164% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Huron Consulting Group has a beta of 0.29, suggesting that its share price is 71% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

93.9% of Huron Consulting Group shares are held by institutional investors. 32.2% of ATIF shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 2.2% of Huron Consulting Group shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for ATIF and Huron Consulting Group, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
ATIF	1	0	0	0	1.00
Huron Consulting Group	0	0	6	0	3.00

Huron Consulting Group has a consensus target price of $175.25, suggesting a potential upside of 6.57%. Given Huron Consulting Group’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Huron Consulting Group is more favorable than ATIF.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares ATIF and Huron Consulting Group”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
ATIF	$620,000.00	13.83	-$3.19 million	($7.19)	-1.24
Huron Consulting Group	$1.52 billion	1.87	$116.63 million	$5.97	27.54

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

Summary

Huron Consulting Group beats ATIF on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About ATIF

ATIF Holdings Ltd. engages in the provision of financial consulting services. It is also involved in merger and acquisition business advisory, post-listing compliance, management support, and related services. The company was founded on January 5, 2015 and is headquartered in Lake Forest, CA.

About Huron Consulting Group

Huron Consulting Group Inc., a professional services firm, provides consultancy services in the United States and internationally. It operates through three segments: Healthcare, Education, and Commercial. The Healthcare segment provides financial and operational performance improvement consulting services; digital offerings, spanning technology and analytic-related services; software products; organizational transformation services; revenue cycle managed and outsourcing services; financial and capital advisory consulting services; and strategy and innovation consulting services to national and regional health systems, academic and community health systems, federal health system, public, children’s and critical access hospitals, physician practices and medical groups, payors, and long-term care or post-acute providers. The Education segment provides digital solutions, spanning technology, and analytic-related services; Huron Research product suite, a software suite designed to facilitate and enhance research administration service delivery and compliance; research-focused consulting and managed services; strategy and operations consulting services for public and private colleges and universities, research institutes, and other education-related organizations. The Commercial segment delivers digital services and software products, and financial advisory services to financial, energy and utilities, professional and business services, life science, consumer products, and industrials and manufacturing industries, as well as public sector and nonprofit organizations. The company was incorporated in 2002 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.