Reviewing Recon Technology (NASDAQ:RCON) & Kodiak Gas Services (NYSE:KGS)

Kodiak Gas Services (NYSE:KGS) and Recon Technology (NASDAQ:RCON) are both oils/energy companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, profitability, dividends, analyst recommendations, earnings, institutional ownership and risk.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for Kodiak Gas Services and Recon Technology, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Kodiak Gas Services	0	2	9	0	2.82
Recon Technology	0	0	0	0	N/A

Kodiak Gas Services presently has a consensus target price of $33.09, indicating a potential upside of 5.52%. Given Kodiak Gas Services’ higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Kodiak Gas Services is more favorable than Recon Technology.

Profitability

This table compares Kodiak Gas Services and Recon Technology’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Kodiak Gas Services	5.23%	7.20%	2.49%
Recon Technology	N/A	N/A	N/A

Insider and Institutional Ownership

25.0% of Kodiak Gas Services shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 9.5% of Recon Technology shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.2% of Kodiak Gas Services shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 28.0% of Recon Technology shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Risk & Volatility

Kodiak Gas Services has a beta of 0.89, indicating that its stock price is 11% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Recon Technology has a beta of 2.39, indicating that its stock price is 139% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Kodiak Gas Services and Recon Technology”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Kodiak Gas Services	$850.38 million	3.12	$20.07 million	$0.64	49.00
Recon Technology	$9.26 million	2.95	-$8.16 million	N/A	N/A

Kodiak Gas Services has higher revenue and earnings than Recon Technology.

Summary

Kodiak Gas Services beats Recon Technology on 9 of the 11 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Kodiak Gas Services

Kodiak Gas Services, Inc. operates contract compression infrastructure for customers in the oil and gas industry in the United States. It operates in two segments, Compression Operations and Other Services. The Compression Operations segment operates company-owned and customer-owned compression infrastructure to enable the production, gathering, and transportation of natural gas and oil. The Other Services segment provides a range of contract services, including station construction, maintenance and overhaul, and other ancillary time and material-based offerings. The company was formerly known as Frontier TopCo, Inc. Kodiak Gas Services, Inc. was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas.

About Recon Technology

Recon Technology, Ltd. provides hardware, software, and on-site services to companies in the petroleum mining and extraction industry in the People’s Republic of China. The company offers equipment, tools, and other components and parts related to oilfield production and other energy industries; and develops and sells industrial automation control and information solutions. It also provides equipment for oil and gas production and transportation, including heating furnaces and burner, as well as improvement techniques comprising packers of fracturing; production packers; sand prevention in oil and water wells; water locating and plugging techniques; fissure shaper; fracture acidizing techniques; and electronic broken-down services to resolve block-up and freezing problems. In addition, the company offers automation systems and services, including pumping unit controller that monitors the pumping units and collects data; RTU to monitor natural gas wells and collect gas well pressure data; wireless dynamometers and wireless pressure gauges; electric multi-way valves for oilfield metering station flow control; and natural gas flow computer systems. Further, it provides Recon SCADA oilfield monitor and data acquisition system for supervision and data collection; EPC service of pipeline SCADA system for pipeline monitoring and data acquisition; EPC service of oil and gas wells SCADA system for monitoring and data acquisition of oil wells and natural gas wells; EPC service of oilfield video surveillance and control system to control the oil and gas wellhead and measurement station areas; and technique service for digital oilfield transformation. Additionally, the company offers oilfield waste water treatment solutions and related chemicals; oily sludge disposal solutions; and gas station operation and management solution. Recon Technology, Ltd. was incorporated in 2007 and is headquartered in Beijing, the People’s Republic of China.