Reviewing Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock (NASDAQ:PHLT) and COMTEX News Network (OTCMKTS:CMTX)

COMTEX News Network (OTCMKTS:CMTX) and Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock (NASDAQ:PHLT) are both business services companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, analyst recommendations, earnings, institutional ownership, profitability, risk and dividends.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

77.2% of Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock shares are owned by institutional investors. 24.0% of COMTEX News Network shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 9.2% of Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock shares are owned by company 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 Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and price targets for COMTEX News Network and Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
COMTEX News Network	0	0	0	0	0.00
Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock	0	0	0	1	4.00

Risk & Volatility

COMTEX News Network has a beta of -2.9, indicating that its stock price is 390% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock has a beta of -0.11, indicating that its stock price is 111% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares COMTEX News Network and Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
COMTEX News Network	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock	$122.98 million	1.60	-$7.52 million	($0.13)	-19.38

COMTEX News Network has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock.

Profitability

This table compares COMTEX News Network and Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
COMTEX News Network	N/A	N/A	N/A
Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock	-6.74%	-10.19%	-7.83%

Summary

Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock beats COMTEX News Network on 5 of the 9 factors compared between the two stocks.

About COMTEX News Network

Comtex News Network, Inc. provides electronic real-time news, and content and proprietary market products in the United States. The company receives, enhances, combines, and filters news and content received from national and international news bureaus, agencies, and publications. Its products comprise CustomWires, the real-time and subject-specific newswires, such as finance, business, foreign exchange, and public companies, as well as real-time trading data in the global stock markets, commodities and futures prices, SEC filing information, personal investment news, economic indicator data, international trade policies, business news, IRS bulletins, and actions from the global financial institutions; and Comtex Top News that include editorial news summaries in 29 categories. The company also provides feed products and custom solutions; and SmarTrend products for managing investments. Comtex News Network, Inc. was incorporated in 1980 and is based in New York, New York.

About Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock

Performant Healthcare, Inc. engages in the provision of technology-enabled audit, recovery, customer care, and related analytics services. Its services help identify improper payments, and in some markets, restructure and recover delinquent or defaulted assets and improper payments for both government and private clients. The company was founded in 1976 and is headquartered in Plantation, FL.