Comparing Soluna (NASDAQ:SLNH) and CompoSecure (NASDAQ:CMPO)

CompoSecure (NASDAQ:CMPO) and Soluna (NASDAQ:SLNH) are both small-cap business services companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, earnings, dividends, profitability, risk, institutional ownership and analyst recommendations.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

37.6% of CompoSecure shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 23.2% of Soluna shares are owned by institutional investors. 75.0% of CompoSecure shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 27.3% of Soluna shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Risk and Volatility

CompoSecure has a beta of 0.87, suggesting that its stock price is 13% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Soluna has a beta of 3.6, suggesting that its stock price is 260% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and price targets for CompoSecure and Soluna, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
CompoSecure	0	1	7	0	2.88
Soluna	0	0	0	0	0.00

CompoSecure presently has a consensus target price of $16.19, indicating a potential upside of 54.31%. Given CompoSecure’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe CompoSecure is more favorable than Soluna.

Profitability

This table compares CompoSecure and Soluna’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
CompoSecure	-5.63%	-14.87%	36.45%
Soluna	-75.30%	-45.29%	-24.41%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares CompoSecure and Soluna”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
CompoSecure	$420.57 million	2.55	$19.24 million	($1.14)	-9.20
Soluna	$38.02 million	0.23	-$29.20 million	($13.03)	-0.05

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

Summary

CompoSecure beats Soluna on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About CompoSecure

CompoSecure, Inc. manufactures and designs metal, composite, and proprietary financial transaction cards in the United States and internationally. Its primary metal form factors include embedded, metal veneer lite, metal veneer, and full metal products. The company also offers Arculus Cold Storage Wallet, a three-factor authentication solution, which supports specific digital assets, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, non-fungible tokens and others. In addition, it offers Payments + Arculus Secure Authenticate, white-labeled cold storage wallet, Payments + Arculus Cold Storage, and Payments + Arculus Authentication + Arculus Cold Storage. The company serves financial institutions, plastic card manufacturers, system integrators, and security specialists. CompoSecure, Inc. was founded in 1910 and is based in Somerset, New Jersey.

About Soluna

Soluna Holdings, Inc. together with its subsidiaries, engages in the mining of cryptocurrency through data centers. It operates through two segments, Cryptocurrency Mining and Data Center Hosting. The company also operates in the blockchain business. In addition, the company develops and builds modular data centers that use for cryptocurrency mining. Further, it provides data center hosting services, including electrical power and network connectivity to cryptocurrency mining customers. The company was formerly known as Mechanical Technology Inc and as changed to Soluna Holdings, Inc. Soluna Holdings, Inc. was incorporated in 1961 and is headquartered in Albany, New York.