Contrasting PLBY Group (NASDAQ:PLBY) and Amer Sports (NYSE:AS)

PLBY Group (NASDAQ:PLBY) and Amer Sports (NYSE:AS) are both consumer discretionary companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, risk, institutional ownership, profitability, earnings, dividends and valuation.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for PLBY Group and Amer Sports, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
PLBY Group	2	0	0	0	1.00
Amer Sports	0	2	15	2	3.00

Amer Sports has a consensus price target of $47.18, indicating a potential upside of 43.72%. Given Amer Sports’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Amer Sports is more favorable than PLBY Group.

Risk and Volatility

PLBY Group has a beta of 1.91, suggesting that its stock price is 91% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Amer Sports has a beta of 2.16, suggesting that its stock price is 116% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares PLBY Group and Amer Sports’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
PLBY Group	-6.21%	21.89%	0.76%
Amer Sports	6.51%	9.74%	5.80%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares PLBY Group and Amer Sports”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
PLBY Group	$120.93 million	1.28	-$12.67 million	($0.08)	-16.63
Amer Sports	$6.57 billion	2.77	$427.40 million	$0.75	43.77

Amer Sports has higher revenue and earnings than PLBY Group. PLBY Group is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Amer Sports, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

32.5% of PLBY Group shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 40.3% of Amer Sports shares are held by institutional investors. 38.3% of PLBY Group shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

Amer Sports beats PLBY Group on 13 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About PLBY Group

PLBY Group, Inc. operates as a pleasure and leisure company in the United States, Australia, China, the United Kingdom, and internationally. It operates through three segments: Licensing, Direct-to-Consumer, and Digital Subscriptions and Content. The company offers sexual wellness products, such as lingerie, bedroom accessories, intimacy products, and other adult products; style and apparel products for men and women; digital entertainment and lifestyle products; and beauty and grooming products for men and women, such as skincare, haircare, bath and body, grooming, cosmetics, and fragrance. It also owns and operates digital commerce retail platforms, such as playboy.com, honeybirdette.com, yandy.com, and loversstores.com; and Honey Birdette and Lovers retail stores. In addition, the company licenses Playboy name, Rabbit Head Design, and other trademarks and related properties; and programming content to cable television operators and direct-to-home satellite television operators. Further, the company business covers the subscription sale of playboyplus.com and playboy.tv, which are online content platforms. It offers its products under its flagship brand Playboy. PLBY Group, Inc. is headquartered in Los Angeles, California.

About Amer Sports

Amer Sports, Inc. designs, manufactures, markets, distributes, and sells sports equipment, apparel, footwear, and accessories in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Americas, China, and the Asia Pacific. It operates through three segments: Technical Apparel, Outdoor Performance, and Ball & Racquet Sports. The Technical Apparel segment offers outdoor apparel, footwear, and accessories which includes climbing gear. The Outdoor Performance segment provides hiking and running footwear, functional apparel, skiing and snowboarding gear, and lifestyle footwear. The Ball & Racquet Sports segment offers sports equipment for tennis, baseball, american football, basketball, golf, and various other professional and recreational sports. This segment provides custom-fitting protective gear and apparel for baseball, softball, football, and lacrosse. It sells its products under the Arc'teryx, PeakPerformance, Salomon, Atomic, Armada, ENVE, Wilson, Louisville Slugger, DeMarini, EvoShield, and ATEC brands. The company distributes its products through retail stores, general sporting goods retailers, specialty stores, independently operated partner stores, and distributors, as well as its e-commerce websites, and retailer-owned and third-party e-commerce websites. The company was formerly known as Amer Sports Management Holding (Cayman) Limited and changed its name to Amer Sports, Inc. in August 2023. Amer Sports, Inc. was founded in 1950 and is based in Helsinki, Finland.