ARQ (NASDAQ:ARQ) and ESGL (NASDAQ:ESGL) Critical Contrast

ARQ (NASDAQ:ARQ) and ESGL (NASDAQ:ESGL) are both business services companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, dividends, earnings, profitability, risk and valuation.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings for ARQ and ESGL, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
ARQ	1	1	2	1	2.60
ESGL	1	0	0	0	1.00

ARQ currently has a consensus price target of $8.75, indicating a potential upside of 152.89%. Given ARQ’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts plainly believe ARQ is more favorable than ESGL.

Risk and Volatility

ARQ has a beta of 1.97, meaning that its stock price is 97% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, ESGL has a beta of 1.45, meaning that its stock price is 45% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares ARQ and ESGL”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
ARQ	$108.96 million	1.36	-$5.11 million	($0.10)	-34.60
ESGL	$6.10 million	N/A	-$630,000.00	N/A	N/A

ESGL has lower revenue, but higher earnings than ARQ.

Profitability

This table compares ARQ and ESGL’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
ARQ	-3.33%	-1.11%	-0.86%
ESGL	N/A	N/A	N/A

Institutional and Insider Ownership

18.5% of ARQ shares are held by institutional investors. 23.9% of ARQ shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 22.4% of ESGL shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

ARQ beats ESGL on 8 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About ARQ

Arq, Inc. is a holding company. It engages in the provision of environmental and emission control equipment to the power generation industry. The company operates through the following Segments: Refined Coal and Advanced Purification Technologies. The Refined Coal segment includes the Tinuum Group, Tinuum Services, and GWN Manager. The Advanced Purification Technologies segment refers to the sale of Activated Carbon Injection and Dry Sorbent Injection equipment systems, chemical sales, consulting services, and other sales related to the reduction of emissions in the coal-fired electric generation process and the electric utility industry. The company was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Greenwood Village, CO.

About ESGL

ESGL Holdings Limited provides waste solutions. It regenerates industrial waste into circular products using technologies and renewable energy. The company was founded in 1999 and is based in Singapore.