Identiv (NASDAQ:INVE) and Ouster (NASDAQ:OUST) Financial Contrast

Identiv (NASDAQ:INVE) and Ouster (NASDAQ:OUST) are both technology companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, dividends, valuation, analyst recommendations, earnings, profitability and institutional ownership.

Profitability

This table compares Identiv and Ouster’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Identiv	-62.93%	-11.02%	-10.34%
Ouster	-26.02%	-17.49%	-12.97%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings for Identiv and Ouster, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Identiv	1	2	0	0	1.67
Ouster	1	2	6	0	2.56

Identiv currently has a consensus target price of $3.40, suggesting a potential upside of 43.46%. Ouster has a consensus target price of $54.67, suggesting a potential upside of 38.29%. Given Identiv’s higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Identiv is more favorable than Ouster.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

65.2% of Identiv shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 31.5% of Ouster shares are owned by institutional investors. 3.6% of Identiv shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 5.7% of Ouster shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Identiv and Ouster”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Identiv	$21.48 million	2.67	-$18.00 million	($0.66)	-3.59
Ouster	$169.38 million	16.83	-$60.38 million	($0.86)	-45.97

Identiv has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Ouster. Ouster is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Identiv, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility & Risk

Identiv has a beta of 1.32, indicating that its stock price is 32% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Ouster has a beta of 3.23, indicating that its stock price is 223% more volatile than the S&P 500.

About Identiv

Identiv, Inc., a security technology company, that provides secure identification and physical security solutions that secure things, data, and physical places worldwide. It operates in two segments, Identity and Premises. The Identity segment offers products and solutions that enables secure access to information serving the logical access and cyber security markets, as well as protecting connected objects and information using radio-frequency identification embedded security. The Premises segment provides solutions for premises security market, such as access control, video surveillance, analytics, audio, access readers, and identities to government facilities, schools, utilities, hospitals, stores, and apartment buildings. The company sells its products through dealers, systems integrators, value added resellers, and resellers. The company was formerly known as Identive Group, Inc. and changed its name to Identiv, Inc. in May 2014. Identiv, Inc. was founded in 1990 and is headquartered in Fremont, California.

About Ouster

Ouster, Inc. provides lidar sensors for the automotive, industrial, robotics, and smart infrastructure industries in Americas, the Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Its products include high-resolution scanning and solid-state digital lidar sensors, analog lidar sensors, and software solutions. The company offers Ouster Sensor, a scanning sensor; and Digital Flash, a solid-state flash sensor. It also provides surround-view lidar sensors, which include Ouster Gemini, a perception platform for smart infrastructure deployments; and Blue City, a Gemini-powered solution for traffic operations, planning, and safety. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California.