Reviewing Lazard (NYSE:LAZ) & HIVE Digital Technologies (NASDAQ:HIVE)

Lazard (NYSE:LAZ) and HIVE Digital Technologies (NASDAQ:HIVE) are both finance companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, analyst recommendations, dividends, institutional ownership, profitability, valuation and earnings.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for Lazard and HIVE Digital Technologies, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Lazard	3	5	4	0	2.08
HIVE Digital Technologies	1	2	6	0	2.56

Lazard presently has a consensus price target of $52.56, suggesting a potential upside of 9.17%. HIVE Digital Technologies has a consensus price target of $6.34, suggesting a potential upside of 42.25%. Given HIVE Digital Technologies’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe HIVE Digital Technologies is more favorable than Lazard.

Risk & Volatility

Lazard has a beta of 1.44, indicating that its share price is 44% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, HIVE Digital Technologies has a beta of 3.5, indicating that its share price is 250% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Lazard and HIVE Digital Technologies”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Lazard	$3.10 billion	1.74	$236.83 million	$2.53	19.03
HIVE Digital Technologies	$115.28 million	10.23	-$3.00 million	($0.60)	-7.43

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

Profitability

This table compares Lazard and HIVE Digital Technologies’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Lazard	8.47%	29.30%	5.52%
HIVE Digital Technologies	-47.89%	-19.81%	-17.54%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

54.8% of Lazard shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 24.4% of HIVE Digital Technologies shares are held by institutional investors. 1.0% of Lazard shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 9.4% of HIVE Digital Technologies shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Lazard beats HIVE Digital Technologies on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Lazard

Lazard, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as a financial advisory and asset management firm in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia. It operates in two segments, Financial Advisory and Asset Management. The Financial Advisory segment offers financial advisory services, such as mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, shareholder, sovereign, geopolitical advisory, and other strategic advisory services, as well as restructuring and liability management, and capital raising and placement services. This segment offers its services to corporate, partnership, institutional, government, sovereign, and individual clients to various industry areas, including consumers, financial institutions, healthcare and life sciences, industrials, power and energy/infrastructure, real estate, technology, telecommunication, and media and entertainment. The Asset Management segment offers a range of investment solutions; investment and wealth management services in equity and fixed income strategies; asset allocation strategies; and alternative investments and private equity funds to corporations, public funds, sovereign entities, endowments and foundations, labor funds, financial intermediaries, and private clients. Lazard, Inc. was incorporated in 1848 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

About HIVE Digital Technologies

HIVE Digital Technologies Ltd. operates as a cryptocurrency mining company in Canada, Sweden, and Iceland. The company engages in the mining and sale of digital currencies, including Ethereum Classic, Bitcoin, and other coins. It also operates data centers; and offers infrastructure solutions. The company was formerly known as HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd. and changed its name to HIVE Digital Technologies Ltd. in July 2023. HIVE Digital Technologies Ltd. was incorporated in 1987 and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.