TuSimple (NASDAQ:TSP – Get Rating) and Aurora Innovation (NASDAQ:AUR – Get Rating) are both small-cap business services companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, valuation, dividends, risk, profitability, earnings and institutional ownership.
Analyst Recommendations
This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for TuSimple and Aurora Innovation, as provided by MarketBeat.com.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| TuSimple | 4 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 1.82 |
| Aurora Innovation | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2.50 |
TuSimple presently has a consensus target price of $15.19, suggesting a potential upside of 1,033.40%. Aurora Innovation has a consensus target price of $5.25, suggesting a potential upside of 272.34%. Given TuSimple’s higher probable upside, equities research analysts clearly believe TuSimple is more favorable than Aurora Innovation.
Valuation and Earnings
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| TuSimple | $8.69 million | 34.60 | -$732.67 million | ($2.02) | -0.66 |
| Aurora Innovation | $68.00 million | 24.31 | -$1.72 billion | ($1.51) | -0.93 |
TuSimple has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Aurora Innovation. Aurora Innovation is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than TuSimple, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Risk and Volatility
TuSimple has a beta of 0.93, meaning that its stock price is 7% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Aurora Innovation has a beta of 1.63, meaning that its stock price is 63% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Profitability
This table compares TuSimple and Aurora Innovation’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| TuSimple | -4,697.76% | -36.09% | -33.77% |
| Aurora Innovation | -2,546.55% | -26.15% | -23.87% |
Insider & Institutional Ownership
38.3% of TuSimple shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 46.5% of Aurora Innovation shares are owned by institutional investors. 20.6% of TuSimple shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 18.8% of Aurora Innovation shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
Summary
Aurora Innovation beats TuSimple on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.
About TuSimple
TuSimple Holdings Inc., an autonomous technology company, develops autonomous technology specifically designed for semi-trucks in the United States and internationally. It intends to produce a line of purpose-built (Level 4) L4 autonomous semi-trucks for the North American market. The company operates its Autonomous Freight Network (AFN) L4 autonomous semi-trucks equipped with its autonomous driving technology. Its AFN is an ecosystem that consists of L4 autonomous semi-trucks, high definition digital mapped routes, terminals, and TuSimple Connect, a cloud-based autonomous operations oversight system. The company was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in San Diego, California.
About Aurora Innovation
Aurora Innovation, Inc. operates as a self-driving technology company in the United States. It focuses on developing Aurora Driver, a platform that brings a suite of self-driving hardware, software, and data services together to adapt and interoperate passenger vehicles, light commercial vehicles, and trucks. The company was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
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