Head to Head Analysis: Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) vs. 8X8 (NASDAQ:EGHT)

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) and 8X8 (NASDAQ:EGHT) are both business services companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, earnings, valuation, profitability, risk and dividends.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Verisk Analytics and 8X8″s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Verisk Analytics	$2.68 billion	15.22	$614.60 million	$6.41	45.09
8X8	$728.71 million	0.55	-$67.59 million	($0.55)	-5.58

Verisk Analytics has higher revenue and earnings than 8X8. 8X8 is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Verisk Analytics, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Risk and Volatility

Verisk Analytics has a beta of 0.87, meaning that its stock price is 13% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, 8X8 has a beta of 1.63, meaning that its stock price is 63% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Verisk Analytics and 8X8’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Verisk Analytics	32.65%	274.13%	20.34%
8X8	-9.68%	-6.00%	-0.83%

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for Verisk Analytics and 8X8, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Verisk Analytics	0	6	3	1	2.50
8X8	2	3	3	0	2.13

Verisk Analytics currently has a consensus target price of $285.80, indicating a potential downside of 1.12%. 8X8 has a consensus target price of $2.82, indicating a potential downside of 8.10%. Given Verisk Analytics’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts plainly believe Verisk Analytics is more favorable than 8X8.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

90.0% of Verisk Analytics shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 94.0% of 8X8 shares are held by institutional investors. 0.4% of Verisk Analytics shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.2% of 8X8 shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Verisk Analytics beats 8X8 on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Verisk Analytics

Verisk Analytics, Inc. provides data analytics and technology solutions to the insurance markets in the United States and internationally. It offers policy language, prospective loss costs, policy writing and rating rules, and various underwriting solutions for risk selection and segmentation, pricing, and workflow optimization; property- and auto- specific rating and underwriting information solutions that allows clients to understand, quantify, underwrite, mitigate, and avoid potential loss for risks; catastrophe modeling solutions, which enables companies to identify, quantify, and plan for the financial consequences of catastrophes for use by insurers, reinsurers, intermediaries, financial institutions, and governments. The company also provides life insurance solutions for transforming current workflows in life insurance underwriting, claim insights, policy administration, unclaimed property/equity, compliance and fraud detection, and actuarial and portfolio modeling; Marketing Solutions, such as compliant, real-time decisioning, profitability, and risk assessment for inbound consumer interactions; and international underwriting and claims solutions. In addition, it offers claims insurance solutions, which provides analytics in fraud detection, compliance reporting, subrogation liability assessment, litigation, and repair cost estimation and valuation solutions; and casualty solutions, such as compliance, casualty claims decision support, and workflow automation solutions. Further, the company supplies software to the specialty insurance market. The company was founded in 1971 and is headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey.

About 8X8

8×8, Inc. provides voice, video, chat, contact center, and enterprise-class application programmable interface (API) Software-as-a-Service solutions for small business, mid-market, enterprise customers, government agencies, and other organizations worldwide. It offers 8×8 Work, a self-contained end-to-end united communications solution that delivers voice services, secure video meetings, and unified messaging, including direct messages, public and private team messaging rooms, and peer-to-peer short and multimedia messaging; 8×8 Contact Center, a cloud-based contact center as-a-service solution; and 8×8 Engage, an artificial intelligence-powered solution that equips customer-facing employees outside the contact center with the tools and capabilities to deliver successful customer engagements. The company also provides 8×8 Communications Platform as-a-Service, a communications platform-as-a-service capabilities that enable businesses to directly integrate its platform services within their websites, mobile apps, and business systems for personalized customer engagement; and Solutions for Microsoft Teams. In addition, it offers and X1 through X4 and X5 through X8, which provide enterprise-grade voice, unified communications, and video meetings and team collaboration, and contact center solutions. The company markets its services to end users through industry conferences, trade shows, webinars, and local and digital advertising channels. 8×8, Inc. was incorporated in 1987 and is headquartered in Campbell, California.