Critical Review: TechTarget (NASDAQ:TTGT) and Stran & Company, Inc. (NASDAQ:SWAG)

Stran & Company, Inc. (NASDAQ:SWAG) and TechTarget (NASDAQ:TTGT) are both small-cap business services companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, valuation, earnings, analyst recommendations, profitability, risk and dividends.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Stran & Company, Inc. and TechTarget, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Stran & Company, Inc.	1	0	0	0	1.00
TechTarget	2	1	3	0	2.17

TechTarget has a consensus target price of $11.25, indicating a potential upside of 107.95%. Given TechTarget’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe TechTarget is more favorable than Stran & Company, Inc..

Risk and Volatility

Stran & Company, Inc. has a beta of 2.14, suggesting that its stock price is 114% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, TechTarget has a beta of 0.87, suggesting that its stock price is 13% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Stran & Company, Inc. and TechTarget”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Stran & Company, Inc.	$82.65 million	0.40	-$4.14 million	($0.09)	-20.33
TechTarget	$284.90 million	1.37	-$116.86 million	($1.73)	-3.13

Stran & Company, Inc. has higher earnings, but lower revenue than TechTarget. Stran & Company, Inc. is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than TechTarget, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

56.4% of Stran & Company, Inc. shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 93.5% of TechTarget shares are held by institutional investors. 49.6% of Stran & Company, Inc. shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.9% of TechTarget shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Stran & Company, Inc. and TechTarget’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Stran & Company, Inc.	-1.38%	-5.05%	-2.88%
TechTarget	-232.59%	-16.76%	-11.15%

About Stran & Company, Inc.

Stran & Co., Inc. engages in the provision of promotional marketing and branded merchandise services. It offers promotional product, custom manufacturing, custom packaging, warehousing, and program management. The company was founded by Andrew Shape and Andrew Stranberg in 1994 and is headquartered in Quincy, MA.

About TechTarget

TechTarget, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides marketing and sales services that deliver business impact for business-to-business technology companies in North America and internationally. The company's service enables technology vendors to identify, reach, and influence corporate information technology (IT) decision-makers actively researching specific IT purchases; and customized marketing programs that integrate demand generation, brand advertising techniques, and content curation and creation. It offers business to business services, such as IT Deal Alert, a suite of data, software, and services comprising Priority Engine and Qualified Sales Opportunities to identify and prioritize accounts and individuals actively researching new technology purchases or upgrades; demand solutions provides marketing programs, including white papers, webcasts, podcasts, videocasts, virtual trade shows, and content sponsorships; brand solutions which includes on-network banner advertising and digital sponsorships, off-network banner targeting, and microsites and related formats; custom content creation that delivers market insights and guidance to technology companies and off-the-shelf editorial sponsorship products on topics aligned to customer markets; and BrightTALK platform which allows customers to create, host and promote webinars, virtual events, and video content. In addition, the company operates websites, webinars, and virtual event channels that focus on a specific IT sector, such as storage, security, or networking; and enables registered members to conduct their pre-purchase research by accessing vendor supplied content through its virtual event and webinar channels, and website networks. TechTarget, Inc. was incorporated in 1999 and is headquartered in Newton, Massachusetts.