Reviewing Altisource Portfolio Solutions (NASDAQ:ASPS) & MFA Financial (NYSE:MFA)

MFA Financial (NYSE:MFA) and Altisource Portfolio Solutions (NASDAQ:ASPS) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their risk, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, earnings, valuation, dividends and profitability.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares MFA Financial and Altisource Portfolio Solutions”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
MFA Financial	$723.97 million	1.36	$119.25 million	$0.85	11.29
Altisource Portfolio Solutions	$160.13 million	0.37	-$35.64 million	($1.94)	-2.77

MFA Financial has higher revenue and earnings than Altisource Portfolio Solutions. Altisource Portfolio Solutions is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than MFA Financial, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for MFA Financial and Altisource Portfolio Solutions, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
MFA Financial	0	4	2	0	2.33
Altisource Portfolio Solutions	1	0	0	0	1.00

MFA Financial presently has a consensus target price of $10.31, indicating a potential upside of 7.42%. Given MFA Financial’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts plainly believe MFA Financial is more favorable than Altisource Portfolio Solutions.

Risk and Volatility

MFA Financial has a beta of 1.59, meaning that its stock price is 59% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Altisource Portfolio Solutions has a beta of 0.16, meaning that its stock price is 84% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares MFA Financial and Altisource Portfolio Solutions’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
MFA Financial	17.51%	7.26%	1.14%
Altisource Portfolio Solutions	0.04%	N/A	-3.73%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

65.3% of MFA Financial shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 41.4% of Altisource Portfolio Solutions shares are held by institutional investors. 0.8% of MFA Financial shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 2.3% of Altisource Portfolio Solutions shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

MFA Financial beats Altisource Portfolio Solutions on 13 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About MFA Financial

MFA Financial, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as a real estate investment trust in the United States. It invests in residential mortgage securities, including non-agency mortgage-backed securities, agency MBS, and credit risk transfer securities; residential whole loans, including purchased performing loans, purchased credit deteriorated, and non-performing loans; and mortgage servicing rights related assets. The company was incorporated in 1997 and is based in New York, New York.

About Altisource Portfolio Solutions

Altisource Portfolio Solutions S.A. operates as an integrated service provider and marketplace for the real estate and mortgage industries in the United States and internationally. It operates through Servicer and Real Estate, and Origination segments. The Servicer and Real Estate segment offers property preservation, inspection, title insurance and settlement, real estate valuation, foreclosure trustee, and residential and commercial construction inspection and risk mitigation services. This segment provides Hubzu, an online real estate auction platform, as well as real estate auction, real estate brokerage, and asset management services; Equator, a software-as-a-service technology to manage real estate owned, short sales, foreclosure, bankruptcy, and eviction processes; a vendor invoicing and payment system; RentRange, a single and multi-family rental data, analytics, and rent-based valuation solution; REALSynergy, a commercial loan servicing platform; and NestRange, an automated residential valuation model and analytics solution. The Origination segment offers loan fulfillment, certification and certification insurance services, management services. In addition, it provides Lendors One Loan Automation, a marketplace to order services and a tool to automate components of the loan manufacturing process; TrelixAI, a technology to manage the workflow and automate components of the loan fulfillment, pre and post close quality, and service transfer processes; and ADMS, a document management and data analytics delivery platform. The company serves financial institutions, government-sponsored enterprises, banks, asset managers, servicers, investors, property management firms, real estate brokerages, insurance companies, mortgage bankers, originators, and correspondent and private money lenders. Altisource Portfolio Solutions S.A. was incorporated in 1999 and is headquartered in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg.