Comparing Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD) and Argo Blockchain (NASDAQ:ARBK)

Argo Blockchain (NASDAQ:ARBK) and Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD) are both finance 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.

Risk and Volatility

Argo Blockchain has a beta of 1.83, suggesting that its stock price is 83% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Applied Digital has a beta of 6.95, suggesting that its stock price is 595% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

2.4% of Argo Blockchain shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 65.7% of Applied Digital shares are owned by institutional investors. 9.5% of Applied Digital 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.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and price targets for Argo Blockchain and Applied Digital, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Argo Blockchain	2	1	0	0	1.33
Applied Digital	1	0	11	1	2.92

Applied Digital has a consensus target price of $26.20, indicating a potential downside of 5.96%. Given Applied Digital’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Applied Digital is more favorable than Argo Blockchain.

Profitability

This table compares Argo Blockchain and Applied Digital’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
Applied Digital	-111.29%	-37.14%	-12.01%

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Argo Blockchain and Applied Digital”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	0.05	-$55.10 million	($210.87)	-0.03
Applied Digital	$144.19 million	53.96	-$231.07 million	($1.13)	-24.65

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

Summary

Applied Digital beats Argo Blockchain on 10 of the 15 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 Applied Digital

Applied Digital Corporation designs, develops, and operates datacenters in North America. Its datacenters provide digital infrastructure solutions to the high-performance computing industry. The company also provides artificial intelligence cloud services, high performance computing datacenter hosting, and crypto datacenter hosting services. The company was formerly known as Applied Blockchain, Inc. and changed its name to Applied Digital Corporation in November 2022. Applied Digital Corporation is based in Dallas, Texas.