Critical Contrast: Liberty Media Corporation – Liberty Live Series A (NASDAQ:LLYVA) & Lumen Technologies (NYSE:LUMN)

Liberty Media Corporation – Liberty Live Series A (NASDAQ:LLYVA) and Lumen Technologies (NYSE:LUMN) are both mid-cap utilities companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, profitability, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, valuation, dividends and risk.

Risk and Volatility

Liberty Media Corporation – Liberty Live Series A has a beta of 1.22, suggesting that its stock price is 22% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Lumen Technologies has a beta of 1.56, suggesting that its stock price is 56% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Liberty Media Corporation – Liberty Live Series A and Lumen Technologies”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Liberty Media Corporation – Liberty Live Series A	N/A	N/A	N/A	($3.86)	-25.14
Lumen Technologies	$12.40 billion	0.59	-$1.74 billion	($1.74)	-4.07

Liberty Media Corporation – Liberty Live Series A has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Lumen Technologies. Liberty Media Corporation – Liberty Live Series A is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Lumen Technologies, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and price targets for Liberty Media Corporation – Liberty Live Series A and Lumen Technologies, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Liberty Media Corporation – Liberty Live Series A	1	1	0	0	1.50
Lumen Technologies	1	6	0	1	2.13

Lumen Technologies has a consensus price target of $7.25, suggesting a potential upside of 2.26%. Given Lumen Technologies’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Lumen Technologies is more favorable than Liberty Media Corporation – Liberty Live Series A.

Profitability

This table compares Liberty Media Corporation – Liberty Live Series A and Lumen Technologies’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Liberty Media Corporation – Liberty Live Series A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Lumen Technologies	-14.02%	-158.40%	-0.37%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

25.1% of Liberty Media Corporation – Liberty Live Series A shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 66.2% of Lumen Technologies shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.3% of Lumen Technologies shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

Lumen Technologies beats Liberty Media Corporation – Liberty Live Series A on 9 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Liberty Media Corporation – Liberty Live Series A

Liberty Live Group operates in the media, communications, and entertainment industries primarily in North America and the United Kingdom. The company is headquartered in Englewood, Colorado.

About Lumen Technologies

Lumen Technologies, Inc., a facilities-based technology and communications company, provides various integrated products and services to business and residential customers in the United States and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Business and Mass Markets. It offers dark fiber, edge cloud services, internet protocol, managed security, software-defined wide area networks, secure access service edge, unified communications and collaboration, and optical wavelengths services; ethernet and VPN data networks services; and legacy services to manage cash flow, including time division multiplexing voice, private line, and other legacy services, as well as sells communication equipment, and IT solutions. The company also provides high speed and lower speed broadband service to residential and small business customers; local and long-distance voice services, professional services, and other ancillary services; and federal broadband and state support programs. It serves its products and services under the Lumen, Quantum Fiber, and CenturyLink brands. The company was formerly known as CenturyLink, Inc. and changed its name to Lumen Technologies, Inc. in September 2020. Lumen Technologies, Inc. was incorporated in 1968 and is headquartered in Monroe, Louisiana.