First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR – Get Free Report) and SMART Global (NASDAQ:SGH – Get Free Report) are both oils/energy companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, institutional ownership, risk, dividends, valuation, profitability and analyst recommendations.
Valuation & Earnings
This table compares First Solar and SMART Global’s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| First Solar | $2.62 billion | 6.70 | -$44.17 million | $1.46 | 112.56 |
| SMART Global | $1.82 billion | 0.65 | $66.56 million | ($0.55) | -43.24 |
SMART Global has lower revenue, but higher earnings than First Solar. SMART Global is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than First Solar, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Analyst Recommendations
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| First Solar | 0 | 7 | 16 | 0 | 2.70 |
| SMART Global | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 3.00 |
First Solar presently has a consensus target price of $233.38, indicating a potential upside of 42.01%. SMART Global has a consensus target price of $33.60, indicating a potential upside of 41.30%. Given First Solar’s higher probable upside, equities analysts plainly believe First Solar is more favorable than SMART Global.
Profitability
This table compares First Solar and SMART Global’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| First Solar | 5.23% | 3.13% | 2.22% |
| SMART Global | -1.56% | 32.78% | 6.91% |
Insider and Institutional Ownership
82.1% of First Solar shares are held by institutional investors. 0.6% of First Solar shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 3.7% of SMART Global shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Volatility and Risk
First Solar has a beta of 1.4, suggesting that its share price is 40% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, SMART Global has a beta of 1.46, suggesting that its share price is 46% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Summary
First Solar beats SMART Global on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.
About First Solar
First Solar, Inc. provides photovoltaic (PV) solar energy solutions in the United State, Japan, France, Canada, India, Australia, and internationally. The company designs, manufactures, and sells cadmium telluride solar modules that converts sunlight into electricity. It serves developers and operators of systems, utilities, independent power producers, commercial and industrial companies, and other system owners. The company was formerly known as First Solar Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to First Solar, Inc. in 2006. First Solar, Inc. was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Tempe, Arizona.
About SMART Global
SMART Global Holdings, Inc. designs and manufactures specialty solutions for the computing, memory, and LED markets in the United States, Brazil, China, Europe, and internationally. It operates through three segments: Memory Solutions, Intelligent Platform Solutions, and LED Solutions. The company offers dynamic random access memory modules for desktops, notebooks, servers, and smartphones; embedded and removable flash memory products; and flash component products. It also provides supply chain services, including procurement, logistics, inventory management, temporary warehousing, programming, kitting, and packaging. In addition, the company offers Penguin Computing solutions to customers in financial services, energy, government, social media, and education end markets; Penguin Edge solutions to government, telecommunications, health care, smart city, network edge, and industrial applications; and hardware and software products, including solutions based on the Open Compute Project. Further, it provides servers, software, integrated turn-key clusters, enterprise-grade storage, and networking in hardware or cloud-based solutions through Penguin-On-Demand; Open Compute Tundra Extreme Scale products; turn-key storage solutions; and rackmount servers and GPU accelerated computing platforms. Additionally, the company's LED Solutions offers application-optimized LEDs for lighting, video screens, and specialty lighting applications under the CreeLED brand. It sells its products directly to original equipment manufacturers, enterprise, government and other end customers through direct sales force, e-commerce, customer service representatives, on-site field application engineers, independent sales representatives, distributors, integrators, and resellers. The company was formerly known as Saleen Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to SMART Global Holdings, Inc. in August 2014. SMART Global Holdings, Inc. was founded in 1988 and is headquartered in Milpitas, California.
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