Financial Analysis: Cresco Labs (OTCMKTS:CRLBF) versus Cellectar Biosciences (NASDAQ:CLRB)

Cresco Labs (OTCMKTS:CRLBF) and Cellectar Biosciences (NASDAQ:CLRB) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, analyst recommendations, risk, profitability, dividends and valuation.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings for Cresco Labs and Cellectar Biosciences, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Cresco Labs	0	1	0	1	3.00
Cellectar Biosciences	1	0	3	1	2.80

Cellectar Biosciences has a consensus target price of $11.00, indicating a potential upside of 356.43%. Given Cellectar Biosciences’ higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Cellectar Biosciences is more favorable than Cresco Labs.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Cresco Labs and Cellectar Biosciences”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Cresco Labs	$655.85 million	0.52	-$135.41 million	($0.39)	-1.75
Cellectar Biosciences	N/A	N/A	-$21.79 million	($6.66)	-0.36

Cellectar Biosciences has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Cresco Labs. Cresco Labs is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Cellectar Biosciences, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility and Risk

Cresco Labs has a beta of 1.52, meaning that its share price is 52% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Cellectar Biosciences has a beta of 0.55, meaning that its share price is 45% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

0.1% of Cresco Labs shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 16.4% of Cellectar Biosciences shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.6% of Cellectar Biosciences shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Cresco Labs and Cellectar Biosciences’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Cresco Labs	-20.90%	-17.98%	-4.29%
Cellectar Biosciences	N/A	-349.24%	-153.18%

Summary

Cellectar Biosciences beats Cresco Labs on 7 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Cresco Labs

Cresco Labs Inc., together with its subsidiaries, cultivates, manufactures, and sells retail and medical cannabis products in the United States. It provides cannabis in flowers, vape pens, live resins, disposable pens, and extracts under the Cresco brand; vape carts, vape pens, flower, popcorn, shake, pre-rolls, shorties, and concentrates under the High Supply brand; vapes and gummies under the Good News brand; vapes and edibles under the Wonder Wellness Co. brand; and tinctures, capsules, salves, and sublingual oils under the Remedi brand. The company also offers cannabis flowers under the FloraCal brand; and chocolate and toffee confections and fruit-forward gummies under the Mindy's Edibles brand, as well as licenses the Kiva brand, which produces cannabis infused edibles, including chocolate confections, gummies, mints, and tarts. In addition, the company offers cannabis-infused edibles under the Sunnyside brand. The company was incorporated in 1990 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

About Cellectar Biosciences

Cellectar Biosciences, Inc., a clinical biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the discovery, development, and commercialization of drugs for the treatment of cancer. Its lead phospholipid drug conjugate (PDC) candidate is CLR 131 (iopofosine I-131), which is in Phase 2 clinical study for patients with B-cell malignancies; Phase 2a clinical study for patients with relapsed or refractory (r/r) Waldenstrom's macroglobulinemia cohort, r/r multiple myeloma (MM) cohort, and r/r non-Hodgkin's lymphoma cohort; Phase 1 clinical study for r/r pediatric patients with select solid tumors, lymphomas, and malignant brain tumors; and Phase 1 clinical study for r/r head and neck cancer. The company also develops CLR 1900, a PDC chemotherapeutic program that is in the preclinical development stage to treat solid tumors. It has collaborative with Orano Med to develop CLR 12120 Series; and LegoChemBio. The company was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Florham Park, New Jersey.