Critical Contrast: Brand Engagement Network (NASDAQ:BNAI) & AstroNova (NASDAQ:ALOT)

AstroNova (NASDAQ:ALOT) and Brand Engagement Network (NASDAQ:BNAI) are both small-cap business services companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, risk, earnings, institutional ownership, valuation, dividends and profitability.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares AstroNova and Brand Engagement Network”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
AstroNova	$151.59 million	0.40	-$14.49 million	($2.25)	-3.52
Brand Engagement Network	$100,000.00	167.40	-$33.72 million	($0.75)	-0.50

AstroNova has higher revenue and earnings than Brand Engagement Network. AstroNova is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Brand Engagement Network, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares AstroNova and Brand Engagement Network’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
AstroNova	-11.20%	1.09%	0.58%
Brand Engagement Network	N/A	-228.03%	-78.90%

Volatility & Risk

AstroNova has a beta of 0.89, indicating that its share price is 11% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Brand Engagement Network has a beta of 0.67, indicating that its share price is 33% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings for AstroNova and Brand Engagement Network, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
AstroNova	1	0	0	0	1.00
Brand Engagement Network	1	0	0	0	1.00

Institutional and Insider Ownership

43.0% of AstroNova shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 15.8% of Brand Engagement Network shares are owned by institutional investors. 12.6% of AstroNova shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 25.6% of Brand Engagement Network shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

AstroNova beats Brand Engagement Network on 6 of the 11 factors compared between the two stocks.

About AstroNova

AstroNova, Inc. designs, develops, manufactures, and distributes specialty printers, and data acquisition and analysis systems in the United States, Europe, Asia, Canada, Central and South America, and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Product Identification (PI) and Test & Measurement (T&M). The PI segment offers tabletop and production-ready digital color label printers, and OEM printing systems under the QuickLabel brand; digital color label mini-presses and inline printing systems under the TrojanLabel brand; and label materials, tags material, inks, toners, and thermal transfer ribbions under the GetLabels brand. This segment also develops and licenses various specialized software programs to design and manage labels and print images; and provides training and support. This segment serves chemicals, cosmetics, food and beverage, medical products, nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, and other industries; and brand owners, label converters, commercial printers, and packaging manufacturers. The T&M segment offers airborne printing solutions, such as ToughWriter used to print hard copies of navigation maps, arrival and departure information, flight itineraries, weather maps, performance data, passenger data, and various air traffic control data; ToughSwitch, an ethernet switches used to connect multiple computers or Ethernet devices; TMX data acquisition systems; Daxus DXS-100 distributed data acquisition platform; SmartCorder DDX100 portable data acquisition systems for facility and field testing; and Everest EV-5000, a digital strip chart recording system used primarily in aerospace and defense. This segment serves aerospace and aerospace and defense, automotive, commercial airline, energy, manufacturing, and transportation industries. The company was formerly known as Astro-Med, Inc. and changed its name to AstroNova, Inc. in May 2016. AstroNova, Inc. was incorporated in 1969 and is headquartered in West Warwick, Rhode Island.

About Brand Engagement Network

Brand Engagement Network, Inc. provides conversational AI assistants. The company offers security-focused, multimodal communication, and human-like assistants. Its AI assistants are built on proprietary natural language processing, anomaly detection, multisensory awareness, sentiment, and environmental analysis, as well as real-time individuation and personalization capabilities. It serves the automotive, healthcare, and other industries through direct sales force and channel partners. Brand Engagement Network, Inc. was formerly known as Blockchain Exchange Network Inc. and changed its name to Brand Engagement Network, Inc. in April 2023. The company was founded in 2018 and is based in Jackson, Wyoming.