Critical Analysis: Booking (NASDAQ:BKNG) and OLB Group (NASDAQ:OLB)

Booking (NASDAQ:BKNG) and OLB Group (NASDAQ:OLB) are both retail/wholesale companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, risk, institutional ownership, valuation, analyst recommendations, dividends and profitability.

Profitability

This table compares Booking and OLB Group’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Booking	19.37%	-134.86%	25.39%
OLB Group	-92.68%	-208.53%	-71.73%

Risk & Volatility

Booking has a beta of 1.21, suggesting that its stock price is 21% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, OLB Group has a beta of 2.08, suggesting that its stock price is 108% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

92.4% of Booking shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 3.8% of OLB Group shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.2% of Booking shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 60.2% of OLB Group shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings for Booking and OLB Group, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Booking	0	9	28	0	2.76
OLB Group	1	0	0	0	1.00

Booking currently has a consensus target price of $6,171.56, suggesting a potential upside of 49.05%. Given Booking’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Booking is more favorable than OLB Group.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Booking and OLB Group”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Booking	$26.04 billion	5.13	$5.88 billion	$153.86	26.91
OLB Group	$12.84 million	0.36	-$11.23 million	($3.56)	-0.12

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

Summary

Booking beats OLB Group on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Booking

Booking Holdings Inc, formerly The Priceline Group Inc., is a provider of travel and restaurant online reservation and related services. The Company, through its online travel companies (OTCs), connects consumers wishing to make travel reservations with providers of travel services across the world. It offers consumers an array of accommodation reservations (including hotels, bed and breakfasts, hostels, apartments, vacation rentals and other properties) through its Booking.com, priceline.com and agoda.com brands. Its other brands include KAYAK, Rentalcars.com and OpenTable, Inc. (OpenTable). As of December 31, 2016, Booking.com offered accommodation reservation services for over 1,115,000 properties in over 220 countries and territories on its various Websites and in over 40 languages, which included over 568,000 vacation rental properties (updated property counts were available on the Booking.com Website).

About OLB Group

The OLB Group, Inc. is a diversified fintech e-commerce merchant services provider and Bitcoin crypto mining enterprise. The Company’s eCommerce platform delivers e-commerce services for a digital commerce solution to over 10,500 merchants in all 50 states. The Company’s wholly owned subsidiary, DMINT, Inc, is engaged in the mining of Bitcoin utilizing low carbon natural gas with over 1,000 application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC)-based S19j Pro 96T mining computers. www.olb.com and www.olb.com/investors-data.