Critical Analysis: GDS (NASDAQ:GDS) & CISO Global (NASDAQ:CISO)

CISO Global (NASDAQ:CISO) and GDS (NASDAQ:GDS) are both technology companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their risk, profitability, earnings, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, dividends and valuation.

Risk & Volatility

CISO Global has a beta of 1.73, suggesting that its share price is 73% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, GDS has a beta of 0.42, suggesting that its share price is 58% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares CISO Global and GDS”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
CISO Global	$26.61 million	0.30	-$8.07 million	($0.19)	-0.93
GDS	$1.63 billion	2.74	$132.10 million	$2.15	10.40

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

Profitability

This table compares CISO Global and GDS’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
CISO Global	-11.67%	-20.09%	-11.84%
GDS	30.70%	17.94%	6.11%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current recommendations and price targets for CISO Global and GDS, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
CISO Global	1	0	0	0	1.00
GDS	0	2	3	1	2.83

GDS has a consensus price target of $48.12, indicating a potential upside of 115.20%. Given GDS’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe GDS is more favorable than CISO Global.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

40.1% of CISO Global shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 33.7% of GDS shares are held by institutional investors. 26.0% of CISO Global shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 8.0% of GDS shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

GDS beats CISO Global on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About CISO Global

CISO Global Inc. operates as a cybersecurity and compliance company in the United States, Chile, and internationally. The company offers security managed services, including compliance, secured managed, and cyber defense operation services; culture education and enablement; tools and technology provisioning; data, privacy, regulations, and compliance monitoring; remote infrastructure administration; and antivirus and patch management services. It also provides cybersecurity professional services, such as incident response and digital forensics; security testing and training; cybersecurity consulting; compliance auditing; vulnerability assessment and penetration testing; and disaster recovery and data backup solutions. The company was formerly known as Cerberus Cyber Sentinel Corporation and changed its name to CISO Global Inc. in May 2023. CISO Global Inc. was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona.

About GDS

GDS Holdings Limited, together with its subsidiaries, develops and operates data centers in the People's Republic of China. The company provides colocation services comprising critical facilities space, customer-available power, racks, and cooling; managed hosting services, including business continuity and disaster recovery, network management, data storage, system security, operating system, database, and server middleware services; managed cloud services; and consulting services. It serves cloud service providers, large Internet companies, financial institutions, telecommunications and IT service providers, and large domestic private sector and multinational corporations. GDS Holdings Limited was founded in 2001 and is headquartered in Shanghai, the People's Republic of China.