Contrasting Alignment Healthcare (NASDAQ:ALHC) and Beauty Health (NASDAQ:SKIN)

Alignment Healthcare (NASDAQ:ALHC) and Beauty Health (NASDAQ:SKIN) are both medical companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, dividends, risk, earnings, profitability and valuation.

Risk & Volatility

Alignment Healthcare has a beta of 1.17, indicating that its stock price is 17% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Beauty Health has a beta of 1.19, indicating that its stock price is 19% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Alignment Healthcare and Beauty Health’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Alignment Healthcare	-0.57%	-16.23%	-2.20%
Beauty Health	-6.13%	-32.82%	-2.96%

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and price targets for Alignment Healthcare and Beauty Health, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Alignment Healthcare	1	4	7	1	2.62
Beauty Health	1	4	1	1	2.29

Alignment Healthcare currently has a consensus target price of $19.75, suggesting a potential upside of 17.28%. Beauty Health has a consensus target price of $2.81, suggesting a potential upside of 105.29%. Given Beauty Health’s higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Beauty Health is more favorable than Alignment Healthcare.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Alignment Healthcare and Beauty Health”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Alignment Healthcare	$2.70 billion	1.25	-$128.04 million	($0.12)	-140.33
Beauty Health	$334.30 million	0.52	-$29.10 million	($0.28)	-4.89

Beauty Health has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Alignment Healthcare. Alignment Healthcare is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Beauty Health, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

86.2% of Alignment Healthcare shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 93.3% of Beauty Health shares are held by institutional investors. 6.6% of Alignment Healthcare shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 41.0% of Beauty Health shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Alignment Healthcare beats Beauty Health on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Alignment Healthcare

Alignment Healthcare, Inc., a tech-enabled Medicare advantage company, operates consumer-centric health care platform for seniors in the United States. It provides customized health care designed to meet the needs of a diverse array of seniors through its Medicare advantage plans. The company was founded in 2013 and is based in Orange, California.

About Beauty Health

The Beauty Health Company designs, develops, manufactures, markets, and sells aesthetic technologies and products worldwide. The company's flagship product includes HydraFacial that enhance the skin to cleanse, extract, and hydrate the skin with proprietary solutions and serums. Its products also comprise Syndeo, a Delivery System designs to connects providers to the consumer's preferences to create a more personalized experience; consumables, such as single-use tips, solutions, and serums used to provide a hydrafacial treatment; SkinStylus SteriLock Microsystem, a microneedling device used for the treatment of enhancing appearance of surgical or traumatic hypertrophic scars on the abdomen and facial acne scarring in Fitzpatrick skin types I, II, and III; and Keravive, a treatment for scalp health. The company was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Long Beach, California.