Financial Contrast: So-Young International (NASDAQ:SY) and Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD)

Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD) and So-Young International (NASDAQ:SY) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, earnings, valuation, risk, dividends and analyst recommendations.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

65.7% of Applied Digital shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 35.3% of So-Young International shares are owned by institutional investors. 11.8% of Applied Digital shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 16.7% of So-Young International shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Risk & Volatility

Applied Digital has a beta of 4.78, meaning that its stock price is 378% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, So-Young International has a beta of 0.85, meaning that its stock price is 15% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Applied Digital and So-Young International”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Applied Digital	$189.96 million	9.22	-$149.27 million	($1.17)	-7.09
So-Young International	$1.49 billion	0.07	$3.00 million	$0.05	17.70

So-Young International has higher revenue and earnings than Applied Digital. Applied Digital is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than So-Young International, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for Applied Digital and So-Young International, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Applied Digital	0	0	7	0	3.00
So-Young International	0	1	0	0	2.00

Applied Digital presently has a consensus target price of $11.14, indicating a potential upside of 34.41%. So-Young International has a consensus target price of $0.80, indicating a potential downside of 9.62%. Given Applied Digital’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities analysts plainly believe Applied Digital is more favorable than So-Young International.

Profitability

This table compares Applied Digital and So-Young International’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Applied Digital	-74.95%	-88.87%	-20.16%
So-Young International	2.41%	1.41%	1.11%

Summary

So-Young International beats Applied Digital on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Applied Digital

Applied Digital Corporation designs, develops, and operates datacenters in North America. Its datacenters provide digital infrastructure solutions to the high-performance computing industry. The company also provides artificial intelligence cloud services, high performance computing datacenter hosting, and crypto datacenter hosting services. The company was formerly known as Applied Blockchain, Inc. and changed its name to Applied Digital Corporation in November 2022. Applied Digital Corporation is based in Dallas, Texas.

About So-Young International

So-Young International Inc. operates an online platform for consumption healthcare services in the People's Republic of China. The company offers So-Young Mobile App that offers users medical aesthetic knowledge and experience to reach an informed medical aesthetic treatment decision and make reservations for treatment with medical professionals and medical aesthetic institutions; So-Young Beauty which provides similar interfaces and functions as the mobile app, as well as serves as additional access points to the platform; and medical aesthetic community content through its website soyoung.com. It provides content in various media formats on its online platform generated by users, including professional generated, content from in-house editorial team that shares opinions on specific new medical procedures and trends; user generated content comprising Beauty Diaries that provides details about medical institution, doctor, price, and other information on the treatment; professional user generated, contents from the medical aesthetic influencers; and doctor generated, content from doctors to generate knowledge. In addition, the company offers consumption healthcare services, including dermatology, dentistry and orthodontics, physical examinations, gynecology, and postnatal care; reservation services; and software as a service. Further, it engages in research and development, production, sales, and agency of laser and other optoelectronic medical beauty equipment; manufacture and sells light therapy device, surgical laser device and other equipment; internet information and technology advisory; online medical treatment and consultation; management consulting; internet culture; micro finance services, as well as sells cosmetics products. The company was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Beijing, China.