Comparing Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD) & Core Scientific (NASDAQ:CORZ)

Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD) and Core Scientific (NASDAQ:CORZ) are both mid-cap finance companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, valuation, risk, profitability, dividends, earnings and analyst recommendations.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Applied Digital and Core Scientific”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Applied Digital	$144.19 million	61.06	-$231.07 million	($0.74)	-41.64
Core Scientific	$319.02 million	18.88	$369.25 million	$1.17	16.31

Core Scientific has higher revenue and earnings than Applied Digital. Applied Digital is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Core Scientific, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and price targets for Applied Digital and Core Scientific, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Applied Digital	2	0	11	2	2.87
Core Scientific	2	3	15	1	2.71

Applied Digital currently has a consensus price target of $42.78, suggesting a potential upside of 38.84%. Core Scientific has a consensus price target of $25.07, suggesting a potential upside of 31.41%. Given Applied Digital’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Applied Digital is more favorable than Core Scientific.

Profitability

This table compares Applied Digital and Core Scientific’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Applied Digital	-52.84%	-15.91%	-4.62%
Core Scientific	N/A	N/A	N/A

Insider and Institutional Ownership

65.7% of Applied Digital shares are owned by institutional investors. 9.5% of Applied Digital shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 1.7% of Core Scientific shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Risk & Volatility

Applied Digital has a beta of 7.25, indicating that its share price is 625% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Core Scientific has a beta of 6.34, indicating that its share price is 534% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Core Scientific beats Applied Digital on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Applied Digital

Applied Digital Corporation designs, develops, and operates datacenters in North America. Its datacenters provide digital infrastructure solutions to the high-performance computing industry. The company also provides artificial intelligence cloud services, high performance computing datacenter hosting, and crypto datacenter hosting services. The company was formerly known as Applied Blockchain, Inc. and changed its name to Applied Digital Corporation in November 2022. Applied Digital Corporation is based in Dallas, Texas.

About Core Scientific

Core Scientific, Inc. provides digital asset mining services in North America. It operates through two segments, Mining and Hosting. The company offers blockchain infrastructure, software solutions, and services; and operates data center mining facilities. It also mines digital assets for its own account; and provides hosting services for other large bitcoin miners, which include deployment, monitoring, trouble shooting, optimization, and maintenance of its customers' digital asset mining equipment. In addition, the company provides electrical power, repair, and other infrastructure services to operate, maintain, and earn digital assets; and sells mining equipment to customers. Core Scientific, Inc. was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Dover, Delaware.