Financial Contrast: NetEase (NASDAQ:NTES) and Actua (ACTA)

Actua (NASDAQ: ACTA) and NetEase (NASDAQ:NTES) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, earnings, dividends, profitability, valuation and risk.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for Actua and NetEase, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Actua	0	1	0	0	2.00
NetEase	3	4	7	0	2.29

Actua currently has a consensus target price of $17.00, indicating a potential upside of 6.92%. NetEase has a consensus target price of $325.92, indicating a potential downside of 4.70%. Given Actua’s higher possible upside, equities analysts clearly believe Actua is more favorable than NetEase.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Actua and NetEase’s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Actua	$109.30 million	4.76	$70.08 million	$2.21	7.19
NetEase	$5.50 billion	8.22	$1.67 billion	$15.20	22.50

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

Risk and Volatility

Actua has a beta of 1.68, indicating that its stock price is 68% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, NetEase has a beta of 0.94, indicating that its stock price is 6% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Actua and NetEase’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Actua	67.78%	-5.80%	-4.62%
NetEase	25.34%	31.84%	21.48%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

72.5% of Actua shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 50.4% of NetEase shares are held by institutional investors. 10.2% of Actua shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 54.7% of NetEase shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Dividends

NetEase pays an annual dividend of $3.63 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.1%. Actua does not pay a dividend. NetEase pays out 23.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend.

Summary

NetEase beats Actua on 11 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Actua

Actua Corporation, formerly ICG Group, Inc., is a multi-vertical cloud technology company. The Company operates through two segments, which include the vertical cloud segment and the vertical cloud (venture) segment. The Company’s vertical cloud-based businesses include Bolt Solutions Inc. (Bolt), Folio Dynamics Holdings Inc. (FolioDynamix), GovDelivery Holdings, Inc. (GovDelivery) and VelocityEHS Holdings, Inc. (VelocityEHS), which operate in the commercial and personal property and casualty insurance, wealth management, government communications and environmental, health and safety (EH&S) markets, respectively. The vertical cloud (venture) businesses include InstaMed Holdings, Inc. (InstaMed) and Parchment Inc. (Parchment), which operate a cloud-based healthcare payments network and an education credentials technology, respectively.

About NetEase

NetEase, Inc. (NetEase) is a technology company. The Company operates an interactive online community in China and is a provider of Chinese language content and services through its online games, Internet media, e-mail, e-commerce and other businesses. The Company operates through three segments: Online Game Services; Advertising Services, and E-mail, E-commerce and Others. Its online games business primarily focuses on offering personal computer (PC)-client massively multi-player online role-playing games (PC-client MMORPGs), as well as mobile games to the Chinese market. The NetEase Websites provide Internet users with Chinese language online services centered over three core service categories, which include content, community and communication. Its online advertising offerings include banner advertising, direct e-mail, sponsored special events, games, contests and other activities. It offers free and fee-based premium e-mail services to its individual users and corporate users.

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