Critical Review: TCTM Kids IT Education (NASDAQ:VSA) and TrueBlue (NYSE:TBI)

TCTM Kids IT Education (NASDAQ:VSA) and TrueBlue (NYSE:TBI) are both small-cap business services companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, risk, earnings, valuation, profitability, analyst recommendations and dividends.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for TCTM Kids IT Education and TrueBlue, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
TCTM Kids IT Education	1	0	0	0	1.00
TrueBlue	1	0	1	0	2.00

TrueBlue has a consensus price target of $6.00, indicating a potential upside of 36.52%. Given TrueBlue’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe TrueBlue is more favorable than TCTM Kids IT Education.

Risk and Volatility

TCTM Kids IT Education has a beta of 0.1, meaning that its share price is 90% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, TrueBlue has a beta of 1.47, meaning that its share price is 47% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares TCTM Kids IT Education and TrueBlue”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
TCTM Kids IT Education	$160.41 million	0.02	-$80.36 million	($25.00)	-0.10
TrueBlue	$1.57 billion	0.08	-$125.75 million	($0.95)	-4.63

TCTM Kids IT Education has higher earnings, but lower revenue than TrueBlue. TrueBlue is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than TCTM Kids IT Education, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

49.8% of TCTM Kids IT Education shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 97.2% of TrueBlue shares are held by institutional investors. 32.9% of TCTM Kids IT Education shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 5.0% of TrueBlue shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares TCTM Kids IT Education and TrueBlue’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
TCTM Kids IT Education	N/A	N/A	N/A
TrueBlue	-1.78%	-4.42%	-1.98%

Summary

TrueBlue beats TCTM Kids IT Education on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About TCTM Kids IT Education

Tarena International, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides professional education services through full-time and part-time classes under the Tarena brand in the People’s Republic of China. It operates through two segments, Adult Professional Education and Childhood & Adolescent Quality Education Services. The company offers education courses in 7 information technology (IT) subjects, such as Java, software testing, Linux and network engineering, Big Data, Web front-end development, Python, and network engineer courses; and 3 non-IT subjects, including digital art, online sales and marketing, and visual effects-VFX, as well as live distance instruction, classroom-based tutoring, and online learning modules. It also provides 9 childhood and adolescent quality education programs, including robotics programming, graphical intelligent programming, NOI informatics Olympiad, Python artificial intelligence, high level hardware programming for secondary school, soft and hard programming enlightenment, creative programming starter, and SPIKE starter and advanced under the TongchengTongmei brand. In addition, the company offers online learning platform for education courses and job placement training courses. As of December 31, 2021, it had a network of 100 directly managed learning centers in 44 cities; and 238 TongchengTongmei standalone learning centers in 54 cities. The company was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Beijing, the People’s Republic of China.

About TrueBlue

TrueBlue, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides specialized workforce solutions in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Puerto Rico. It operates through three segments: PeopleReady, PeopleManagement, and PeopleScout. The company PeopleReady segment provides general, industrial, and skilled trade contingent staffing services for construction, transportation, manufacturing, retail, hospitality, and renewable energy industries. The PeopleManagement segment offers contingent, on-site industrial staffing, and commercial driver services, which includes on-site management and recruitment for the contingent industrial workforce of manufacturing, warehousing, and distribution facilities; and recruitment and management of contingent and dedicated commercial drivers to the transportation and distribution industries under the Staff Management, SIMOS Insourcing Solutions, and Centerline Drivers brands. The company PeopleScout segment provides recruitment process outsourcing, talent advisory services, and managed service provider solutions including sourcing, screening, hiring, and onboarding services; operates Affinix, a technology platform for sourcing, screening, and delivering a permanent workforce to its clients; talent advisory services, such as employer branding, recruitment marketing, talent insights, diversity, equity and inclusion consulting, candidate assessment, and talent acquisition strategy consulting services; and contingent labor programs including vendor selection, performance management, compliance monitoring, and risk management. TrueBlue, Inc. was formerly known as Labor Ready, Inc. and changed its name to TrueBlue, Inc. in December 2007. The company was incorporated in 1985 and is headquartered in Tacoma, Washington.