Reviewing GCT Semiconductor (NYSE:GCTS) and POET Technologies (NASDAQ:POET)

GCT Semiconductor (NYSE:GCTS) and POET Technologies (NASDAQ:POET) are both small-cap computer and technology companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, risk, profitability, earnings, dividends, analyst recommendations and valuation.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

28.1% of GCT Semiconductor shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 2.0% of POET Technologies shares are held by institutional investors. 0.2% of GCT Semiconductor shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.5% of POET Technologies shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings for GCT Semiconductor and POET Technologies, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
GCT Semiconductor	0	0	1	0	3.00
POET Technologies	0	0	2	1	3.33

GCT Semiconductor currently has a consensus price target of $5.00, suggesting a potential upside of 145.70%. POET Technologies has a consensus price target of $6.25, suggesting a potential upside of 42.05%. Given GCT Semiconductor’s higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe GCT Semiconductor is more favorable than POET Technologies.

Risk & Volatility

GCT Semiconductor has a beta of 1.13, suggesting that its stock price is 13% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, POET Technologies has a beta of 0.38, suggesting that its stock price is 62% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares GCT Semiconductor and POET Technologies’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
GCT Semiconductor	N/A	N/A	-27.81%
POET Technologies	N/A	-194.16%	-132.32%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares GCT Semiconductor and POET Technologies”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
GCT Semiconductor	$16.03 million	6.06	-$2.00 million	N/A	N/A
POET Technologies	$119,946.00	2,862.57	-$20.27 million	($0.59)	-7.46

GCT Semiconductor has higher revenue and earnings than POET Technologies.

Summary

GCT Semiconductor beats POET Technologies on 7 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About GCT Semiconductor

GCT Semiconductor Holding, Inc., operates as a fabless semiconductor company, designs, develops, and markets integrated circuits for the wireless semiconductor industry. The company provides RF and modem chipsets based on 4G LTE technology, including 4G LTE, 4.5G LTE Advanced, and 4.75G LTE Advanced-Pro. It also develops and sells cellular IoT chipsets for low-speed mobile networks such as eMTC/NB-IOT/Sigfox, and other network protocols; and 5G solutions. Its products and solutions are used in smartphones, tablets, hotspots, CPEs, USB dongles, routers, and M2M applications. The company sells its products directly or indirectly through distributors to original equipment manufacturers and original design manufacturers primarily in Taiwan, China, Korea and Japan, Europe, North America and South America. The company was formerly known as Global Communication Technology, Inc. GCT Semiconductor Holding, Inc. was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in San Jose, California.

About POET Technologies

POET Technologies Inc. designs, develops, manufactures, and sells discrete and integrated opto-electronic solutions in Canada, the United States, Singapore, and China. It offers integration solutions based on the POET Optical Interposer, a novel platform that allows the seamless integration of electronic and photonic devices into a single multi-chip module using advanced wafer-level semiconductor manufacturing techniques. It also develops photonic integrated components. The company serves the data center, telecommunications, Internet of things and industrial sensing, automotive LIDAR, optical coherence tomography for medical devices, and virtual reality systems markets. The company was formerly known as Opel Technologies Inc. and changed its name to POET Technologies Inc. in June 2013. POET Technologies Inc. was incorporated in 1972 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.