Head-To-Head Analysis: Crane NXT (NYSE:CXT) versus Agora (NASDAQ:API)

Agora (NASDAQ:API) and Crane NXT (NYSE:CXT) are both business services companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, profitability, dividends, institutional ownership, valuation, analyst recommendations and risk.

Volatility & Risk

Agora has a beta of 0.6, suggesting that its stock price is 40% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Crane NXT has a beta of 1.18, suggesting that its stock price is 18% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Agora and Crane NXT”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Agora	$141.06 million	2.48	$9.53 million	$0.09	41.67
Crane NXT	$1.66 billion	1.43	$145.10 million	$2.51	16.48

Crane NXT has higher revenue and earnings than Agora. Crane NXT is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Agora, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Agora and Crane NXT, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Agora	1	1	0	0	1.50
Crane NXT	0	3	3	1	2.71

Crane NXT has a consensus target price of $71.60, suggesting a potential upside of 73.08%. Given Crane NXT’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Crane NXT is more favorable than Agora.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

40.4% of Agora shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 77.5% of Crane NXT shares are owned by institutional investors. 14.6% of Agora shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.6% of Crane NXT shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Agora and Crane NXT’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Agora	6.75%	1.68%	1.35%
Crane NXT	8.76%	19.84%	8.27%

Summary

Crane NXT beats Agora on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Agora

Agora, Inc. operates in real-time engagement technology business in the People's Republic of China, the United States, and internationally. The company offers real-time engagement platform-as-a-services providing developers with application programming interfaces to embed real-time voice, video, interactive live-streaming, chat, whiteboard, and artificial intelligence capabilities into their applications. It also provides video and voice calling, interactive live and broadcast streaming, chat, signaling, and interactive whiteboard products; and extensions, such as analytics, recording, AI noise suppression, 3D spatial audio, real-time transcription, and extensions marketplace. In addition, the company offers Application Platforms, including Flexible Classroom, a low-code application Platform as a Service, which combines video, voice, chat, signaling, whiteboard and recording functionalities into an integrated cloud-based solution for education providers; and App Builder, a no-code application platform, designed for developers with little or no coding experience to build their own applications with video conference and live streaming functionalities. It operates through Agora and Shengwang brands. Agora, Inc. was incorporated in 2013 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.

About Crane NXT

Crane NXT, Co. operates as an industrial technology company that provides technology solutions to secure, detect, and authenticate customers’ important assets. The company operates through Crane Payment Innovations and Crane Currency segments. The Crane Payment Innovations segment offers electronic equipment and associated software, as well as advanced automation solutions, processing systems, field service solutions, remote diagnostics, and productivity software solutions. The Crane Currency segment provides advanced security solutions based on proprietary technology for securing physical products, including banknotes, consumer goods, and industrial products. Crane NXT, Co. was incorporated in 2021 and is based in Waltham, Massachusetts.