Critical Survey: ASGN (NYSE:ASGN) vs. Atlantic International (NASDAQ:ATLN)

Atlantic International (NASDAQ:ATLN) and ASGN (NYSE:ASGN) are both business services companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, earnings, valuation, institutional ownership, profitability, risk and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for Atlantic International and ASGN, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Atlantic International	0	0	0	0	0.00
ASGN	0	2	2	0	2.50

ASGN has a consensus price target of $101.75, indicating a potential upside of 44.78%. Given ASGN’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe ASGN is more favorable than Atlantic International.

Profitability

This table compares Atlantic International and ASGN’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Atlantic International	N/A	-298.20%	-42.32%
ASGN	4.27%	13.22%	6.92%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Atlantic International and ASGN”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Atlantic International	$80,000.00	1,385.39	-$5.63 million	($8.24)	-0.27
ASGN	$4.10 billion	0.76	$175.20 million	$3.84	18.30

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

Institutional & Insider Ownership

95.4% of ASGN shares are owned by institutional investors. 22.3% of Atlantic International shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 3.2% of ASGN shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Risk and Volatility

Atlantic International has a beta of 1.76, meaning that its share price is 76% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, ASGN has a beta of 1.38, meaning that its share price is 38% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

ASGN beats Atlantic International on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Atlantic International

Atlantic International Corp. engages in the design, development, and manufacture of genetic analysis technologies. Its services include RNA sequencing and DNA sequencing. The company was founded by William C. St. Laurent and Daniel R. Jones in 2013 and is headquartered in Billercia, MA.

About ASGN

ASGN Incorporated engages in the provision of information technology (IT) services and solutions in the technology, digital, and creative fields for commercial and government sectors in the United States, Canada, and Europe. It operates through two segments: Commercial and Federal Government. The Commercial Segment provides consulting, creative digital marketing, and permanent placement services primarily to enterprise clients. This segment also offers workforce mobilization, modern enterprise, and digital innovation IT consulting services; and cloud, data and analytics, and digital transformation solutions. The Federal Government Segment provides mission-critical solutions to the department of defense, intelligence communities, and federal civilian agencies. This segment offers cloud, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, machine learning, application and IT modernization, and science and engineering solutions. The company was formerly known as On Assignment, Inc. and changed its name to ASGN Incorporated in April 2018. ASGN Incorporated was founded in 1985 and is based in Glen Allen, Virginia.