Financial Contrast: Research Solutions (RSSS) vs. Its Rivals

Research Solutions (NASDAQ:RSSS) is one of 203 publicly-traded companies in the “Professional Services” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its peers? We will compare Research Solutions to similar companies based on the strength of its valuation, risk, institutional ownership, dividends, earnings, profitability and analyst recommendations.

Risk and Volatility

Research Solutions has a beta of 0.84, meaning that its stock price is 16% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Research Solutions’ peers have a beta of 0.97, meaning that their average stock price is 3% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Research Solutions and its peers top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Research Solutions	$48.31 million	$2.82 million	20.39
Research Solutions Competitors	$3.29 billion	$228.39 million	37.53

Research Solutions’ peers have higher revenue and earnings than Research Solutions. Research Solutions is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and price targets for Research Solutions and its peers, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Research Solutions	0	2	3	0	2.60
Research Solutions Competitors	1595	6491	9188	433	2.48

Research Solutions currently has a consensus price target of $3.83, suggesting a potential upside of 108.90%. As a group, “Professional Services” companies have a potential upside of 27.99%. Given Research Solutions’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Research Solutions is more favorable than its peers.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

33.6% of Research Solutions shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 57.3% of shares of all “Professional Services” companies are held by institutional investors. 9.5% of Research Solutions shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 17.2% of shares of all “Professional Services” companies are held by 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.

Profitability

This table compares Research Solutions and its peers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Research Solutions	5.84%	15.55%	6.22%
Research Solutions Competitors	0.25%	36.77%	4.43%

Summary

Research Solutions peers beat Research Solutions on 8 of the 13 factors compared.

About Research Solutions

Research Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ: RSSS) provides cloud-based research intelligence solutions for organizations that rely on scientific, technical and medical information. Its offerings are designed to help users discover, access, organize and evaluate research content as part of their daily workflows. The company’s product portfolio includes Article Galaxy, a platform that provides access to full-text scholarly articles, patents and other research materials, as well as tools intended to streamline document retrieval, literature review and collaboration.