Analyzing Health Catalyst (NASDAQ:HCAT) and Precipio (NASDAQ:PRPO)
by Kim Johansen · The Markets DailyPrecipio (NASDAQ:PRPO – Get Free Report) and Health Catalyst (NASDAQ:HCAT – Get Free Report) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, institutional ownership, dividends, analyst recommendations, profitability, valuation and risk.
Valuation and Earnings
This table compares Precipio and Health Catalyst”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| Precipio | $18.53 million | 2.18 | -$4.29 million | ($0.82) | -28.17 |
| Health Catalyst | $316.06 million | 0.55 | -$69.50 million | ($1.59) | -1.53 |
Precipio has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Health Catalyst. Precipio is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Health Catalyst, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Risk and Volatility
Precipio has a beta of 1.09, suggesting that its stock price is 9% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Health Catalyst has a beta of 1.72, suggesting that its stock price is 72% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Analyst Ratings
This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for Precipio and Health Catalyst, as provided by MarketBeat.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| Precipio | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1.00 |
| Health Catalyst | 1 | 8 | 5 | 0 | 2.29 |
Health Catalyst has a consensus price target of $4.36, suggesting a potential upside of 78.84%. Given Health Catalyst’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Health Catalyst is more favorable than Precipio.
Profitability
This table compares Precipio and Health Catalyst’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| Precipio | -5.50% | -10.07% | -6.71% |
| Health Catalyst | -34.05% | -6.67% | -3.21% |
Institutional & Insider Ownership
10.5% of Precipio shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 85.0% of Health Catalyst shares are owned by institutional investors. 16.9% of Precipio shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 2.6% of Health Catalyst shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Summary
Health Catalyst beats Precipio on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.
About Precipio
Precipio, Inc., a healthcare solutions company, provides diagnostic products, reagents, and services in the United States. It provides diagnostic blood cancer testing services. The company offers IV-Cell, a proprietary cell culture media that enables simultaneous culturing of four hematopoietic cell lineages; and HemeScreen, a suite of robust genetic diagnostic panels. It offers biomarker testing and clinical project services to bio-pharma customers. The company is based in New Haven, Connecticut.
About Health Catalyst
Health Catalyst, Inc. provides data and analytics technology and services to healthcare organizations in the United States. It operates in two segments, Technology and Professional Services. The company provides data operating system data platform which provides clients single comprehensive environment to integrate and organize data from their disparate software systems; and analytics applications, a software analytics applications build for data platform to analyze clients face across clinical and quality, population health, and financial and operational use cases. It offers services expertise solutions comprising data and analytics, domain expertise and education, tech-enabled managed, and implementation services; and opportunity analysis and prioritization, data governance, data modeling and analysis, quality and process improvement strategy, cost accounting, data abstraction, and population health strategies. The company was formerly known as HQC Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to Health Catalyst, Inc. in March 2017. Health Catalyst, Inc. was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in South Jordan, Utah.