Netlist (OTCMKTS:NLST – Get Rating) and LightPath Technologies (NASDAQ:LPTH – Get Rating) are both small-cap computer and technology companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, earnings, profitability, institutional ownership, dividends, valuation and risk.
Volatility & Risk
Netlist has a beta of 1.06, indicating that its stock price is 6% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, LightPath Technologies has a beta of 1.33, indicating that its stock price is 33% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Analyst Ratings
This is a breakdown of recent ratings for Netlist and LightPath Technologies, as reported by MarketBeat.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| Netlist | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3.00 |
| LightPath Technologies | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3.00 |
Netlist presently has a consensus price target of $10.00, suggesting a potential upside of 184.09%. LightPath Technologies has a consensus price target of $3.60, suggesting a potential upside of 174.81%. Given Netlist’s higher possible upside, research analysts plainly believe Netlist is more favorable than LightPath Technologies.
Valuation & Earnings
This table compares Netlist and LightPath Technologies’ top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| Netlist | $142.35 million | 5.72 | $4.83 million | $0.01 | 352.35 |
| LightPath Technologies | $38.47 million | 0.92 | -$3.18 million | ($0.19) | -6.89 |
Netlist has higher revenue and earnings than LightPath Technologies. LightPath Technologies is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Netlist, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Profitability
This table compares Netlist and LightPath Technologies’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| Netlist | 3.39% | 13.33% | 6.34% |
| LightPath Technologies | -14.56% | -15.63% | -9.57% |
Insider & Institutional Ownership
0.0% of Netlist shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 42.7% of LightPath Technologies shares are owned by institutional investors. 3.8% of Netlist shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 7.6% of LightPath Technologies shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Summary
Netlist beats LightPath Technologies on 8 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.
Netlist Company Profile (Get Rating)
Netlist, Inc. designs, manufactures, and markets memory subsystems for the server, high-performance computing, and communications markets in the United States and internationally. It offers HybriDIMM, a storage class memory product, which unifies dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) and NAND flash in a plug-and-play module delivering terabyte storage capacities operating at nanosecond memory speeds. The company also provides nonvolatile (NV) memory products, such as NVvault DDR4 NVDIMM that provides data acceleration and protection in a joint electron device engineering council standard DDR4 interface; and specialty DIMMs and embedded flash products for use in data center and industrial applications. It resells component products, including solid state drive (SSDs), NAND flash, and DRAM products to storage customers, appliance customers, system builders, and cloud and datacenter customers; and sells component inventory to distributors and other users of memory integrated circuits. The company markets and sells its products through a direct sales force and a network of independent sales representatives. Netlist, Inc. was incorporated in 2000 and is headquartered in Irvine, California.
LightPath Technologies Company Profile (Get Rating)
LightPath Technologies, Inc. designs, develops, manufactures, and distributes optical components and assemblies. The company offers precision molded glass aspheric optics, molded and diamond-turned infrared aspheric lenses, and other optical components used to produce products that manipulate light. Its products are used in defense products, medical devices, laser aided industrial tools, automotive safety applications, barcode scanners, optical data storage, hybrid fiber coax datacom, telecommunications, machine vision and sensors, and other industries. The company sells its products directly to customers in North America, Europe, and Asia, as well as through distributors and catalogs in the United States and internationally. LightPath Technologies, Inc. was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in Orlando, Florida.
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