LivePerson (NASDAQ:LPSN) and ANSYS (NASDAQ:ANSS) Head-To-Head Survey

LivePerson (NASDAQ:LPSN) and ANSYS (NASDAQ:ANSS) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, analyst recommendations, dividends, profitability, risk, institutional ownership and earnings.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current recommendations and price targets for LivePerson and ANSYS, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
LivePerson	1	7	0	0	1.88
ANSYS	1	2	1	0	2.00

LivePerson currently has a consensus target price of $1.25, suggesting a potential downside of 2.34%. ANSYS has a consensus target price of $346.67, suggesting a potential upside of 3.76%. Given ANSYS’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe ANSYS is more favorable than LivePerson.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

79.8% of LivePerson shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 92.4% of ANSYS shares are held by institutional investors. 9.0% of LivePerson shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.5% of ANSYS shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares LivePerson and ANSYS”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
LivePerson	$401.98 million	0.29	-$100.43 million	($1.53)	-0.84
ANSYS	$2.27 billion	12.87	$500.41 million	$6.48	51.56

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

Profitability

This table compares LivePerson and ANSYS’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
LivePerson	-18.72%	-111.48%	-6.78%
ANSYS	23.01%	12.64%	9.55%

Risk & Volatility

LivePerson has a beta of 1.59, indicating that its stock price is 59% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, ANSYS has a beta of 1.12, indicating that its stock price is 12% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

ANSYS beats LivePerson on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About LivePerson

LivePerson, Inc. engages in conversational artificial intelligence. It enables brands to leverage the Conversational Cloud's intelligence engine to connect with consumers through an integrated suite of mobile and online business messaging technologies. The company offers the Conversational Cloud, an enterprise-class digital customer conversation platform, which enables businesses and consumers to connect through conversational channels, such as voice, in-app, and mobile messaging. It also provides professional services; LivePerson's Conversational AI, including conversation builder, manager, and intelligence, and intent manager. In addition, it provides Voice AI, conversational intelligence and insights, and integration services. The company sells its products to Fortune 500 companies, Internet businesses, online merchants, automotive dealers, educational institution, public sector, and not-for-profit organizations. It operates in the United States, Canada, Latin America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the United Kingdom, and the Asia-Pacific. LivePerson, Inc. was incorporated in 1995 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

About ANSYS

ANSYS, Inc. develops and markets engineering simulation software and services for engineers, designers, researchers, and students in the United States, Japan, Germany, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, rest of Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and internationally. It offers structural analysis product suite that provides simulation tools for product design and optimization; the Ansys Mechanical product, an element analysis software; LS-DYNA solver for multiphysics simulation; and power analysis and optimization software suite. The company also offers electronics product suite that provides electromagnetic field simulation software for designing electronic and electromechanical products; Ansys High Frequency Structure Simulator product for radio frequency and microwave design; SCADE product suite, a solution for embedded software simulation, code production, and automated certification; fluids product suite that enables modeling of fluid flow and other related physical phenomena; Ansys Fluent computational fluid dynamics software package; Ansys RedHawk-SC for electronic design automation; Ansys Optics software; and mission-simulation, modeling, testing, and analysis software. In addition, it offers Ansys Granta MI system for materials information management; Ansys Granta Selector technology for materials selection and graphical analysis; CES EduPack product, a set of teaching resources; Granta Materials Data for Simulation; Ansys Lumerical product, a photonics simulation software solution; safety-certified embedded software solutions; Discovery product family for use in the simulation of product design; academic product suite for research and teaching settings. ANSYS, Inc. was founded in 1970 and is headquartered in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania.