Contrasting Exponent (NASDAQ:EXPO) and Professional Diversity Network (NASDAQ:IPDN)

Professional Diversity Network (NASDAQ:IPDN) and Exponent (NASDAQ:EXPO) are both industrials companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, institutional ownership, earnings, valuation, dividends, analyst recommendations and risk.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for Professional Diversity Network and Exponent, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Professional Diversity Network	1	0	0	0	1.00
Exponent	0	2	2	0	2.50

Exponent has a consensus price target of $81.00, suggesting a potential upside of 17.48%. Given Exponent’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Exponent is more favorable than Professional Diversity Network.

Risk and Volatility

Professional Diversity Network has a beta of 1.59, meaning that its stock price is 59% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Exponent has a beta of 0.69, meaning that its stock price is 31% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

27.8% of Professional Diversity Network shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 92.4% of Exponent shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.4% of Professional Diversity Network shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.7% of Exponent shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Professional Diversity Network and Exponent’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Professional Diversity Network	-143.98%	-76.40%	-54.04%
Exponent	17.67%	31.48%	15.53%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Professional Diversity Network and Exponent”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Professional Diversity Network	$6.13 million	0.47	-$6.45 million	($51.05)	-0.08
Exponent	$582.01 million	5.63	$106.01 million	$2.23	30.92

Exponent has higher revenue and earnings than Professional Diversity Network. Professional Diversity Network is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Exponent, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Exponent beats Professional Diversity Network on 13 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Professional Diversity Network

Professional Diversity Network, Inc. operates online professional networking communities with career resources in the United States. It operates through three segments: Professional Diversity Network (PDN Network), National Association of Professional Women (NAPW Network), and RemoteMore USA (RemoteMore). The company offers online professional job seeking communities that offers recruitment services, such as single and multiple job postings, recruitment media, talent recruitment communities, corporate memberships, hiring campaign marketing and advertising, e-newsletter marketing, and research and outreach services to various cultural groups and employers. It also provides consumer advertising and consumer marketing solutions through advertising and job postings on its websites; and contracted software development services. In addition, the company operates a women-only professional networking organization; and offers companies with talented engineers to provide solutions to their software needs. Professional Diversity Network, Inc. was incorporated in 2003 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

About Exponent

Exponent, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as a science and engineering consulting company in the United States and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Engineering and Other Scientific, and Environmental and Health. The Engineering and Other Scientific segment provides services in the areas of biomechanics, biomedical engineering and sciences, buildings and structures, civil engineering, construction consulting, data sciences, electrical engineering and computer science, human factors, materials and corrosion engineering, mechanical engineering, polymer science and materials chemistry, thermal sciences, and vehicle engineering. The Environmental and Health segment offers services in the areas of chemical regulation and food safety, ecological and biological sciences, environmental and earth sciences, and health sciences. The company offers approximately 90 technical disciplines to solve pressing and complicated challenges facing stakeholders. It serves clients in chemical, construction, consumer products, energy, food, beverage and nutrition, government, life sciences, insurance, manufacturing, technology, industrial equipment, transportation, and other sectors of the economy. The company was formerly known as The Failure Group, Inc. and changed its name to Exponent, Inc. in 1998. The company was founded in 1967 and is headquartered in Menlo Park, California.