Comparing AdStar (OTCMKTS:ADST) and Direct Digital (NASDAQ:DRCT)

Direct Digital (NASDAQ:DRCT) and AdStar (OTCMKTS:ADST) are both business services companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, profitability, institutional ownership, earnings, valuation, dividends and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and price targets for Direct Digital and AdStar, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Direct Digital	1	1	1	0	2.00
AdStar	0	0	0	0	0.00

Direct Digital currently has a consensus price target of $6.00, suggesting a potential upside of 6,421.74%. Given Direct Digital’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Direct Digital is more favorable than AdStar.

Profitability

This table compares Direct Digital and AdStar’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Direct Digital	-26.76%	N/A	-39.57%
AdStar	N/A	N/A	N/A

Insider and Institutional Ownership

4.0% of Direct Digital shares are owned by institutional investors. 46.9% of Direct Digital shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 22.6% of AdStar shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Direct Digital and AdStar”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Direct Digital	$62.29 million	0.04	-$6.24 million	($1.36)	-0.07
AdStar	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

AdStar has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Direct Digital.

Summary

Direct Digital beats AdStar on 6 of the 8 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Direct Digital

Direct Digital Holdings, Inc. operates as an end-to-end full-service programmatic advertising platform. The company's platform primarily focuses on providing advertising technology, data-driven campaign optimization, and other solutions to underserved and less efficient markets on both the buy- and sell-side of the digital advertising ecosystem. It serves various industry verticals, such as travel, healthcare, education, financial services, consumer products, and other sectors with a focus on small and mid-sized businesses. The company was founded in 2018 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.

About AdStar

AdStar, Inc. engages in the provision of advertising technology services to publishers. It focuses on its application service provider. The company was founded by Leslie Bernhard and Eli Rousso in 1986 and is headquartered in Marina del Rey, CA.