ironSource (NYSE:IS – Get Rating) and Pegasystems (NASDAQ:PEGA – Get Rating) are both mid-cap computer and technology companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, earnings, dividends, analyst recommendations, risk, valuation and institutional ownership.
Analyst Recommendations
This is a breakdown of current recommendations and price targets for ironSource and Pegasystems, as provided by MarketBeat.
Get ironSource alerts:| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| ironSource | 0 | 5 | 8 | 0 | 2.62 |
| Pegasystems | 0 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 2.00 |
ironSource currently has a consensus price target of $7.80, suggesting a potential upside of 96.92%. Pegasystems has a consensus price target of $66.00, suggesting a potential upside of 85.50%. Given ironSource's stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts plainly believe ironSource is more favorable than Pegasystems.
Risk & Volatility
ironSource has a beta of 1.97, suggesting that its share price is 97% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Pegasystems has a beta of 0.96, suggesting that its share price is 4% less volatile than the S&P 500.Profitability
This table compares ironSource and Pegasystems' net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| ironSource | 9.84% | 10.77% | 8.18% |
| Pegasystems | -31.10% | -29.68% | -7.07% |
Insider and Institutional Ownership
22.3% of ironSource shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 46.5% of Pegasystems shares are held by institutional investors. 50.5% of Pegasystems shares are held by 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.
Earnings and Valuation
This table compares ironSource and Pegasystems' revenue, earnings per share and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| ironSource | $553.47 million | 7.25 | $59.82 million | $0.06 | 66.01 |
| Pegasystems | $1.21 billion | 2.41 | -$63.04 million | ($4.65) | -7.65 |
ironSource has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Pegasystems. Pegasystems is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than ironSource, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Summary
ironSource beats Pegasystems on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.
About ironSource
(Get Rating)
ironSource Ltd. operates a business platform for app developers and telecom operators in Israel and internationally. The company's platforms include Sonic solution suite that supports developers to launch, monetize, and scale their apps and games by providing solutions for app discovery, user growth, content monetization, analytics, and publishing; and Aura solution suite, which allows telecom operators to enrich the device experience by creating new engagement touchpoints that deliver relevant content for their users across the entire lifecycle of the device. ironSource Ltd. was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel.
About Pegasystems
(Get Rating)
Pegasystems Inc. develops, markets, licenses, hosts, and supports enterprise software applications in the United States, rest of the Americas, the United Kingdom, rest of Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific. It provides Pega Platform, an application development product for clients; and Pega Infinity, a software platform that unifies customer engagement and digital process automation. The company also offers customer engagement applications, including Pega Customer Decision Hub that enable enterprises to enhance customer acquisition and experiences across inbound, outbound, and paid media channels; Pega Sales Automation to automate and manage the sales process; and Pega Customer Service to anticipate customer needs, connect customers to people and systems, and automate customer interactions to evolve the customer service experience, as well as to allow enterprises to deliver interactions across channels and enhance employee productivity. In addition, it provides intelligent automation software; Pega Cloud that allows clients to develop, test, and deploy applications and the Pega Platform using an Internet-based infrastructure; Pega Academy, which offers instructor-led and online training to its employees, clients, and partners; and guidance, implementation, and technical support services. The company primarily markets its software and services to financial services, life sciences, healthcare, communications and media, government, insurance, manufacturing and high tech, and consumer services markets through a direct sales force, as well as partnerships with technology providers and application developers. Pegasystems Inc. was incorporated in 1983 and is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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