Contrasting Intercorp Financial Services (NYSE:IFS) & Sphere 3D (NASDAQ:ANY)

Intercorp Financial Services (NYSE:IFS) and Sphere 3D (NASDAQ:ANY) are both finance companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, dividends, profitability, risk, valuation and analyst recommendations.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

17.3% of Sphere 3D shares are owned by institutional investors. 4.2% of Sphere 3D 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 recommendations for Intercorp Financial Services and Sphere 3D, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Intercorp Financial Services	0	0	2	1	3.33
Sphere 3D	1	0	0	0	1.00

Intercorp Financial Services currently has a consensus target price of $56.00, suggesting a potential upside of 12.85%. Given Intercorp Financial Services’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts plainly believe Intercorp Financial Services is more favorable than Sphere 3D.

Profitability

This table compares Intercorp Financial Services and Sphere 3D’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Intercorp Financial Services	30.53%	17.49%	2.13%
Sphere 3D	-163.45%	-78.14%	-73.36%

Risk & Volatility

Intercorp Financial Services has a beta of 0.77, suggesting that its share price is 23% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Sphere 3D has a beta of 3.6, suggesting that its share price is 260% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Intercorp Financial Services and Sphere 3D”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Intercorp Financial Services	$1.67 billion	3.31	$542.25 million	$5.35	9.28
Sphere 3D	$11.18 million	0.70	-$21.48 million	($3.48)	-0.53

Intercorp Financial Services has higher revenue and earnings than Sphere 3D. Sphere 3D is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Intercorp Financial Services, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Intercorp Financial Services beats Sphere 3D on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Intercorp Financial Services

Intercorp Financial Services Inc., together with its subsidiaries, offers banking, insurance, wealth management, and payment services for retail and commercial clients in Peru. The company provides loans, credit facilities, deposits, and current accounts; life annuity products with single-premium payment and conventional life insurance products, as well as other retail insurance products; and brokerage and investment management services. It engages in the development, management, operation, and processing of credit and debit cards; facilitation of payments and services through commercial stores; and installation and maintenance of infrastructure for transactions through electronic commerce modality and networks of payment methods processors. The company was incorporated in 1897 and is based in Lima, Peru. Intercorp Financial Services Inc. operates as a subsidiary of Intercorp Perú Ltd.

About Sphere 3D

Sphere 3D Corp. engages in the bitcoin mining business. It is involved with digital asset mining pool operators to provide computing power to the mining pools. The company is based in Stamford, Connecticut.