Critical Survey: BigBear.ai (NYSE:BBAI) versus Vertex (NASDAQ:VERX)

BigBear.ai (NYSE:BBAI) and Vertex (NASDAQ:VERX) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, institutional ownership, valuation, earnings, analyst recommendations, profitability and risk.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares BigBear.ai and Vertex’s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
BigBear.ai	$155.16 million	2.67	-$60.37 million	($0.42)	-4.06
Vertex	$572.39 million	7.53	-$13.09 million	($0.10)	-279.40

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

Risk & Volatility

BigBear.ai has a beta of 3.69, meaning that its share price is 269% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Vertex has a beta of 0.62, meaning that its share price is 38% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings for BigBear.ai and Vertex, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
BigBear.ai	0	2	2	0	2.50
Vertex	0	4	6	0	2.60

BigBear.ai currently has a consensus target price of $3.00, indicating a potential upside of 75.95%. Vertex has a consensus target price of $35.67, indicating a potential upside of 27.65%. Given BigBear.ai’s higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe BigBear.ai is more favorable than Vertex.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

7.6% of BigBear.ai shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 59.1% of Vertex shares are held by institutional investors. 2.0% of BigBear.ai shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 45.0% of Vertex shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares BigBear.ai and Vertex’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
BigBear.ai	-38.90%	N/A	-29.60%
Vertex	-2.29%	16.15%	5.08%

Summary

Vertex beats BigBear.ai on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About BigBear.ai

BigBear.ai Holdings, Inc. provides artificial intelligence-powered decision intelligence solutions. It offers national security, supply chain management, and digital identity and biometrics solutions. The company also provides data ingestion, data enrichment, data processing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, predictive analytics, and predictive visualization solutions and services. It serves nation defense and intelligence agencies, border protection, transportation security, manufacturing, distribution and logistics, travel, entertainment, and tourism sectors. The company is headquartered in Columbia, Maryland.

About Vertex

Vertex, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides enterprise tax technology solutions for retail trade, wholesale trade, and manufacturing industries in the United States and internationally. The company offers tax determination; compliance and reporting, including workflow management tools, role-based security, and event logging; tax data management; document management; analytics and insights; pre-built integration that includes mapping data fields, and business logic and configurations; industry-specific solutions; and technology specific solutions, such as chain flow accelerator and SAP-specific tools. It provides implementation services, such as configuration, data migration and implementation, and support and training; and managed services, including tax return preparation, filing and tax payment, and notice management. The company sells its software products through software licenses and software as a service subscription. Vertex, Inc. was founded in 1978 and is headquartered in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.