Comparing Stem (NYSE:STEM) and NiCE (NASDAQ:NICE)

Stem (NYSE:STEM) and NiCE (NASDAQ:NICE) are both technology companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, profitability, risk, valuation, earnings, institutional ownership and dividends.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

61.6% of Stem shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 63.3% of NiCE shares are owned by institutional investors. 5.1% of Stem shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.0% of NiCE shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Stem and NiCE, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Stem	1	4	0	0	1.80
NiCE	1	6	7	0	2.43

Stem presently has a consensus price target of $7.45, suggesting a potential upside of 61.61%. NiCE has a consensus price target of $129.50, suggesting a potential upside of 23.37%. Given Stem’s higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Stem is more favorable than NiCE.

Risk & Volatility

Stem has a beta of 1.52, suggesting that its share price is 52% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, NiCE has a beta of 0.75, suggesting that its share price is 25% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

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

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Stem	$156.27 million	0.28	$137.76 million	($8.49)	-0.54
NiCE	$2.95 billion	2.08	$612.10 million	$6.87	15.28

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

Profitability

This table compares Stem and NiCE’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Stem	-49.37%	N/A	-21.85%
NiCE	13.86%	15.46%	11.53%

Summary

NiCE beats Stem on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Stem

Stem, Inc. operates as a digitally connected, intelligent, and renewable energy storage network provider worldwide. The company offers energy storage hardware sourced from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs); edge hardware to aid in the collection of site data and real-time operation and control of the site and other optional equipment; and Athena, a software platform, which offers battery hardware and software-enabled services to operate the energy storage systems. It serves commercial and industrial enterprises, independent power producers, renewable project developers, and utilities and grid operators. The company was incorporated in 2009 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

About NiCE

NiCE Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, provides cloud platforms for AI-driven digital business solutions worldwide. It offers CXone, a cloud native open platform; Enlighten, an AI engine for the customer engagement market; and smart self-service enables organizations to address consumers’ needs; and journey orchestration solutions that empower organizations to connect and route customers to deal with the customer’s request, and connects them using real-time AI-based routing. The company provides smart self service solutions that empower organizations to build intelligent automated conversations based on data; and prepared agent solutions and tools enable contact center agents to guide and alert them in real time; provides solutions that help organizations to record structured and unstructured customer interaction and transaction data; and NiCE Evidencentral, an digital evidence management platform for public safety emergency communications, law enforcement, and criminal justice helps agencies. In addition, it offers X-Sight, is an open and flexible AI-cloud platform for financial crime and compliance; Xceed, a cloud platform for comprehensive AML and fraud prevention for small and mid-sized organizations; data intelligence solutions that enable organizations to turn raw data into comprehensive actionable intelligence to prevent and detect financial crimes; AI and analytics technologies to detect and prevent financial crimes in real-time; money laundering and fraud prevention solutions that help organizations adhere to capital markets compliance and anti-money laundering compliance regulations; intelligent investigations solutions; and self-service solutions that provide organizations with customization and self-development capabilities. The company was formerly known as NiCE-Systems Ltd. and changed its name to NiCE Ltd. in June 2016. NiCE Ltd. was founded in 1986 and is headquartered in Ra’anana, Israel.