Contrasting Viad (NYSE:VVI) & Alight (NYSE:ALIT)

Alight (NYSE:ALIT) and Viad (NYSE:VVI) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, earnings, risk, profitability, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership and dividends.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Alight and Viad”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Alight	$3.41 billion	1.16	-$345.00 million	($0.62)	-11.71
Viad	$1.31 billion	0.57	$16.02 million	($0.38)	-92.26

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

Risk and Volatility

Alight has a beta of 0.86, meaning that its stock price is 14% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Viad has a beta of 2.04, meaning that its stock price is 104% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Alight and Viad, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Alight	0	1	9	0	2.90
Viad	0	0	2	0	3.00

Alight presently has a consensus price target of $10.75, suggesting a potential upside of 48.89%. Viad has a consensus price target of $41.50, suggesting a potential upside of 16.90%. Given Alight’s higher probable upside, equities analysts clearly believe Alight is more favorable than Viad.

Profitability

This table compares Alight and Viad’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Alight	-6.58%	5.42%	2.36%
Viad	2.30%	29.43%	3.10%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

96.7% of Alight shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 89.9% of Viad shares are owned by institutional investors. 5.3% of Alight shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 4.1% of Viad shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

About Alight

Alight, Inc. provides cloud-based integrated digital human capital and business solutions worldwide. The company operates through two segments, Employer Solutions and Professional Services. The Employer Solutions segment offers employee wellbeing, integrated benefits administration, healthcare navigation, financial wellbeing, leave of absence management, retiree healthcare and payroll; and operates AI-led capabilities software. The Professional Services segment offers consulting offerings, such as cloud advisory, deployment, and optimization services for cloud platforms. The company provides Alight Worklife, an intuitive, cloud-based employee engagement platform. Its solutions enable employees to enrich their health, wealth, and wellbeing that helps organizations achieve a high-performance culture. Alight, Inc. was founded in 2020 and is based in Lincolnshire, Illinois.

About Viad

Viad Corp provides hospitality, leisure activities, experiential marketing, and live events in the United States, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. It operates in three segments: Pursuit, Spiro, and GES Exhibitions. The Pursuit segment offers recreational attractions, hotels and lodges, food and beverage, retail, sightseeing, and ground transportation services. This segment consists of Banff Jasper Collection, the Alaska Collection, the Glacier Park Collection, FlyOver, and Sky Lagoon. The Spiro segment operates as an experiential marketing agency that partners with brands around the world to manage and elevate their global experiential marketing activities. The GES Exhibition segment engages as an exhibition services company that partners with exhibition and conference organizers as a full-service provider of strategic and logistics solutions to manage the complexity of their shows. It serves event organizers and corporate brand marketers; and tour operators, tour wholesalers, destination management companies, and retail travel agencies. Viad Corp was founded in 1926 and is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona.