Financial Review: Argo Blockchain (NASDAQ:ARBK) & Axos Financial (NYSE:AX)

Argo Blockchain (NASDAQ:ARBK) and Axos Financial (NYSE:AX) are both finance companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, dividends, earnings, analyst recommendations, valuation and risk.

Risk and Volatility

Argo Blockchain has a beta of 1.8, indicating that its stock price is 80% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Axos Financial has a beta of 1.35, indicating that its stock price is 35% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations for Argo Blockchain and Axos Financial, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Argo Blockchain	2	1	0	0	1.33
Axos Financial	0	1	6	0	2.86

Axos Financial has a consensus target price of $97.17, indicating a potential upside of 22.85%. Given Axos Financial’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Axos Financial is more favorable than Argo Blockchain.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

2.4% of Argo Blockchain shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 83.8% of Axos Financial shares are held by institutional investors. 4.9% of Axos Financial shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Argo Blockchain and Axos Financial’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Argo Blockchain	N/A	N/A	N/A
Axos Financial	22.24%	17.11%	1.82%

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Argo Blockchain and Axos Financial”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Argo Blockchain	$47.02 million	0.41	-$55.10 million	($0.97)	-0.27
Axos Financial	$1.24 billion	3.60	$432.91 million	$7.47	10.59

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

Summary

Axos Financial beats Argo Blockchain on 13 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Argo Blockchain

Argo Blockchain plc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies mining business worldwide. It engages in mining purpose-built computers for complex cryptographic algorithms. The company was formerly known as GoSun Blockchain Limited and changed its name to Argo Blockchain plc in December 2017. Argo Blockchain plc was incorporated in 2017 and is based in London, the United Kingdom.

About Axos Financial

Axos Financial, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides consumer and business banking products in the United States. It operates through two segments, Banking Business and Securities Business. The company offers deposits products, including consumer and business checking, demand, savings, time deposit, money market, zero balance, and insured cash sweep accounts. It also provides residential single family, multifamily, and commercial mortgage loans; commercial real estate secured loans; commercial and industrial non-real estate, asset-backed, lines of credit, and term loans; automobile loans; fixed rate unsecured loans; and other loans, such as structure settlements, small business administration consumer loans, and securities-backed loans. In addition, the company offers ACH origination, wire transfer, commercial check printing, business bill pay and account transfer; remote deposit capture, mobile deposit, lockbox, merchant, and online payment portal; concierge banking; mobile and text message banking; and payment services, as well as debit and credit cards, and digital wallets. Further, it provides disclosed clearing services; back-office services, such as record keeping, trade reporting, accounting, general back-office support, securities and margin lending, reorganization assistance, and custody of securities; and financing to brokerage customers. The company was formerly known as BofI Holding, Inc. and changed its name to Axos Financial, Inc. in September 2018. Axos Financial, Inc. was incorporated in 1999 and is based in Las Vegas, Nevada.