Contrasting Privia Health Group (NASDAQ:PRVA) and Guardant Health (NASDAQ:GH)

Privia Health Group (NASDAQ:PRVA) and Guardant Health (NASDAQ:GH) are both healthcare companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, risk, earnings, profitability, institutional ownership, dividends and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings for Privia Health Group and Guardant Health, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Privia Health Group	0	3	11	0	2.79
Guardant Health	1	0	23	1	2.96

Privia Health Group currently has a consensus price target of $31.00, indicating a potential upside of 52.86%. Guardant Health has a consensus price target of $188.54, indicating a potential upside of 10.46%. Given Privia Health Group’s higher probable upside, research analysts plainly believe Privia Health Group is more favorable than Guardant Health.

Profitability

This table compares Privia Health Group and Guardant Health’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Privia Health Group	1.19%	3.52%	2.00%
Guardant Health	-38.33%	N/A	-25.40%

Volatility and Risk

Privia Health Group has a beta of 0.8, meaning that its share price is 20% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Guardant Health has a beta of 1.58, meaning that its share price is 58% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

94.5% of Privia Health Group shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 92.6% of Guardant Health shares are held by institutional investors. 5.7% of Privia Health Group shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 5.6% of Guardant Health shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Privia Health Group and Guardant Health”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Privia Health Group	$2.12 billion	1.22	$22.92 million	$0.21	96.57
Guardant Health	$982.02 million	23.33	-$416.28 million	($3.49)	-48.91

Privia Health Group has higher revenue and earnings than Guardant Health. Guardant Health is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Privia Health Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Privia Health Group beats Guardant Health on 10 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Privia Health Group

Privia Health Group, Inc. operates as a national physician-enablement company in the United States. The company collaborates with medical groups, health plans, and health systems to optimize physician practices, enhance patient experiences, and reward doctors for delivering care in-person and virtual settings. It offers technology and population health tools to enhance independent providers' workflows; management services organization that enable providers to focus on their patients by reducing administrative work; single-TIN medical group that facilitates payer negotiation, clinical integration and alignment of financial incentives; accountable care organization, which engage patients, reduce inappropriate utilization, and enhance coordination and patient quality metrics to drive value-based care; and network for purchasers and payers that enable providers to connect with new patient populations and create custom contracts. The company was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia.

About Guardant Health

Guardant Health, Inc., a precision oncology company, provides blood and tissue tests, data sets, and analytics in the United States and internationally. The company provides Guardant360; Guardant360 LDT; Guardant360 CDx Test; Guardant360 Response Test; Guardant360 TissueNext Test; GuardantINFINITY Test; GuardantConnect, an integrated software-based solution designed for clinical and biopharmaceutical customers to connect patients tested with assays with actionable alterations with potentially relevant clinical studies; GuardantOMNI Test for advanced stage cancer; and GuardantINFORM, an in-silico research platform for tumor evolution and treatment resistance across various biomarker-driven cancers. It offers Shield Test; Guardant Reveal Test for adjuvant treatment selection in early-stage cancer patients; Smart Liquid Biopsy Platform; and Guardant Galaxy, an AI-backed digital pathology platform that helps improve cancer biomarker detection. In addition, the company offers development services, including companion diagnostic development and regulatory approval, clinical study setup, monitoring and maintenance, testing development and support, technologies licensing, and kits fulfillment. The company has a collaboration agreement with Illumina, Inc. for the sharing of specimen samples to advance cancer research. The company was incorporated in 2011 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.