LendingTree (NASDAQ:TREE – Get Free Report) and Atlantic International (NASDAQ:CIRC – Get Free Report) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, risk, institutional ownership, profitability, valuation, analyst recommendations and dividends.
Analyst Recommendations
This is a breakdown of recent ratings for LendingTree and Atlantic International, as reported by MarketBeat.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| LendingTree | 0 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 2.71 |
| Atlantic International | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2.33 |
LendingTree currently has a consensus target price of $61.33, indicating a potential upside of 120.78%. Given LendingTree’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe LendingTree is more favorable than Atlantic International.
Profitability
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| LendingTree | 14.33% | 14.57% | 4.49% |
| Atlantic International | -19.39% | N/A | -28.58% |
Volatility & Risk
LendingTree has a beta of 2.05, indicating that its share price is 105% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Atlantic International has a beta of 0.81, indicating that its share price is 19% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Insider and Institutional Ownership
68.3% of LendingTree shares are owned by institutional investors. 4.0% of LendingTree shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 13.6% of Atlantic International shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Earnings and Valuation
This table compares LendingTree and Atlantic International”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| LendingTree | $1.12 billion | 0.35 | $151.31 million | $12.90 | 2.15 |
| Atlantic International | $435.88 million | 0.15 | -$59.43 million | ($2.11) | -0.33 |
LendingTree has higher revenue and earnings than Atlantic International. Atlantic International is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than LendingTree, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Summary
LendingTree beats Atlantic International on 13 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.
About LendingTree
LendingTree, Inc., through its subsidiary, operates online consumer platform in the United States. It operates through three segments: Home, Consumer, and Insurance. The Home segment offers purchase mortgage, refinance mortgage, and home equity loans and lines of credit; and real estate brokerage services. The Consumer segment provides credit cards; personal, small business, student, and auto loans; deposit accounts; and other credit products, such as debt settlement services. The Insurance segment includes information, tools, and access to insurance quote products, including home, automobile, and health and Medicare through which consumers are matched with insurance lead aggregators to obtain insurance offers and policies. In addition, the company offers QuoteWizard, a marketplace for insurance comparison; ValuePenguin, a personal finance website that offers consumers objective analysis on various financial topics from insurance to credit cards; and Stash, a consumer investing and banking platform that offers a suite of personal investment accounts, traditional and Roth IRAs, custodial investment accounts, and banking services, including checking accounts and debit cards with a Stock-Back rewards program. The company was formerly known as Tree.com, Inc. and changed its name to LendingTree, Inc. in January 2015. LendingTree, Inc. was incorporated in 1996 and is based in Charlotte, North Carolina.
About Atlantic International
Atlantic International Corp., through its subsidiaries, operates as a staffing company servicing the commercial, professional, finance, direct placement, and managed service provider verticals. The company specializes in permanent, temporary, and temporary-to-permanent placement services in various areas, including accounting and finance, administrative and clerical, hospitality, information technology, legal, light industrial, and medical fields. It also provides productivity consulting and workforce management solutions. Atlantic International Corp. was founded in 2018 and is based in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
Receive News & Ratings for LendingTree Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for LendingTree and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter.
