Reviewing CompoSecure (NASDAQ:CMPO) and Cipher Mining (NASDAQ:CIFR)

Cipher Mining (NASDAQ:CIFR) and CompoSecure (NASDAQ:CMPO) are both business services companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, earnings, risk, dividends, profitability, institutional ownership and valuation.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for Cipher Mining and CompoSecure, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Cipher Mining	0	0	8	2	3.20
CompoSecure	0	1	6	0	2.86

Cipher Mining currently has a consensus target price of $7.72, indicating a potential upside of 15.21%. CompoSecure has a consensus target price of $15.79, indicating a potential downside of 1.03%. Given Cipher Mining’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe Cipher Mining is more favorable than CompoSecure.

Profitability

This table compares Cipher Mining and CompoSecure’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Cipher Mining	-33.39%	-8.29%	-7.29%
CompoSecure	-5.63%	-14.87%	36.45%

Volatility and Risk

Cipher Mining has a beta of 2.18, suggesting that its stock price is 118% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, CompoSecure has a beta of 0.76, suggesting that its stock price is 24% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

12.3% of Cipher Mining shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 37.6% of CompoSecure shares are held by institutional investors. 2.3% of Cipher Mining shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 75.0% of CompoSecure shares are held 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 & Valuation

This table compares Cipher Mining and CompoSecure”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Cipher Mining	$126.84 million	18.37	-$25.78 million	($0.13)	-51.53
CompoSecure	$390.63 million	3.60	$19.24 million	($0.44)	-36.25

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

Summary

Cipher Mining beats CompoSecure on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Cipher Mining

Cipher Mining Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the development and operation of industrial scale bitcoin mining data centers in the United States. The company was incorporated in 2020 and is based in New York, New York. Cipher Mining Inc. operates as a subsidiary of Bitfury Holding B.V.

About CompoSecure

CompoSecure, Inc. manufactures and designs metal, composite, and proprietary financial transaction cards in the United States and internationally. Its primary metal form factors include embedded, metal veneer lite, metal veneer, and full metal products. The company also offers Arculus Cold Storage Wallet, a three-factor authentication solution, which supports specific digital assets, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, non-fungible tokens and others. In addition, it offers Payments + Arculus Secure Authenticate, white-labeled cold storage wallet, Payments + Arculus Cold Storage, and Payments + Arculus Authentication + Arculus Cold Storage. The company serves financial institutions, plastic card manufacturers, system integrators, and security specialists. CompoSecure, Inc. was founded in 1910 and is based in Somerset, New Jersey.