Reviewing Niagen Bioscience (NASDAQ:NAGE) and Nature’s Sunshine Products (NASDAQ:NATR)

Nature’s Sunshine Products (NASDAQ:NATR) and Niagen Bioscience (NASDAQ:NAGE) are both small-cap consumer staples companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, earnings, valuation, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, dividends and profitability.

Volatility & Risk

Nature’s Sunshine Products has a beta of 0.84, suggesting that its share price is 16% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Niagen Bioscience has a beta of 2.09, suggesting that its share price is 109% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Nature’s Sunshine Products and Niagen Bioscience’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Nature’s Sunshine Products	3.68%	12.88%	8.17%
Niagen Bioscience	12.39%	17.95%	13.17%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Nature’s Sunshine Products and Niagen Bioscience, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Nature’s Sunshine Products	0	1	2	0	2.67
Niagen Bioscience	0	1	3	1	3.00

Nature’s Sunshine Products currently has a consensus target price of $30.50, indicating a potential upside of 117.55%. Niagen Bioscience has a consensus target price of $10.33, indicating a potential upside of 225.97%. Given Niagen Bioscience’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Niagen Bioscience is more favorable than Nature’s Sunshine Products.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Nature’s Sunshine Products and Niagen Bioscience”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Nature’s Sunshine Products	$480.14 million	0.51	$19.52 million	$1.01	13.88
Niagen Bioscience	$129.42 million	1.95	$17.38 million	$0.18	17.61

Nature’s Sunshine Products has higher revenue and earnings than Niagen Bioscience. Nature’s Sunshine Products is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Niagen Bioscience, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

79.4% of Nature’s Sunshine Products shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 15.4% of Niagen Bioscience shares are owned by institutional investors. 3.1% of Nature’s Sunshine Products shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 10.0% of Niagen Bioscience shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Niagen Bioscience beats Nature’s Sunshine Products on 11 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Nature’s Sunshine Products

Nature’s Sunshine Products, Inc., a natural health and wellness company, manufactures and sells nutritional and personal care products in Asia, Europe, North America, Latin America, and internationally. It offers general health products related to blood sugar support, bone health, cellular health, cognitive function, joint health, mood, sexual health, sleep, sports and energy, and vision. The company also provides immunity, cardiovascular, and digestive products; and personal care products, such as oils and lotions, aloe vera gels, herbal shampoos, herbal skin treatment, toothpaste, and skin cleansers, as well as weight management products. It offers its products under the Nature’s Sunshine and Synergy WorldWide brands through a sales force of independent consultants. Nature’s Sunshine Products, Inc. was founded in 1972 and is headquartered in Lehi, Utah.

About Niagen Bioscience

Niagen Bioscience, Inc. is a global bioscience company, which engages in acquiring, developing, and commercializing proprietary-based ingredient technologies. It is pioneering research on nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+). The company’s patent portfolio includes Nicotinamide Riboside (NR) and other NAD+ precursors, which are commercialized as the flagship ingredient Niagen. It operates through the following segments: Consumer Products, Ingredients, and Analytical Reference Standards and Services. The Consumer Products segment provides finished dietary supplement products that contain the firm’s proprietary ingredients directly to consumers as well as to distributors. The Ingredients segment supplies ingredients as raw materials to the manufacturers of consumer products. The Analytical Reference Standards and Services segment includes supply of phytochemical reference standards and other research and development services. The company was founded by Mark S. Germain and Frank L. Jaksch, Jr. in 1999 and is headquartered in Los Angeles, CA.