American Express (NYSE:AXP) vs. CompoSecure (NASDAQ:CMPO) Head to Head Contrast

CompoSecure (NASDAQ:CMPO) and American Express (NYSE:AXP) are both business services companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, valuation, analyst recommendations, earnings, institutional ownership, risk and dividends.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and target prices for CompoSecure and American Express, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
CompoSecure	0	1	7	0	2.88
American Express	2	15	9	0	2.27

CompoSecure currently has a consensus price target of $16.19, indicating a potential upside of 42.62%. American Express has a consensus price target of $302.57, indicating a potential upside of 9.63%. Given CompoSecure’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts plainly believe CompoSecure is more favorable than American Express.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

37.6% of CompoSecure shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 84.3% of American Express shares are held by institutional investors. 75.0% of CompoSecure shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.1% of American Express shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares CompoSecure and American Express”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
CompoSecure	$420.57 million	2.76	$19.24 million	($1.14)	-9.96
American Express	$65.95 billion	2.94	$10.13 billion	$14.01	19.70

American Express has higher revenue and earnings than CompoSecure. CompoSecure is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than American Express, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares CompoSecure and American Express’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
CompoSecure	-5.63%	-14.87%	36.45%
American Express	15.36%	32.65%	3.56%

Risk and Volatility

CompoSecure has a beta of 0.77, meaning that its share price is 23% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, American Express has a beta of 1.21, meaning that its share price is 21% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

American Express beats CompoSecure on 10 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About CompoSecure

CompoSecure, Inc. manufactures and designs metal, composite, and proprietary financial transaction cards in the United States and internationally. Its primary metal form factors include embedded, metal veneer lite, metal veneer, and full metal products. The company also offers Arculus Cold Storage Wallet, a three-factor authentication solution, which supports specific digital assets, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, non-fungible tokens and others. In addition, it offers Payments + Arculus Secure Authenticate, white-labeled cold storage wallet, Payments + Arculus Cold Storage, and Payments + Arculus Authentication + Arculus Cold Storage. The company serves financial institutions, plastic card manufacturers, system integrators, and security specialists. CompoSecure, Inc. was founded in 1910 and is based in Somerset, New Jersey.

About American Express

American Express Company, together with its subsidiaries, operates as integrated payments company in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the Asia Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, Canada, the Caribbean, and Internationally. It operates through four segments: U.S. Consumer Services, Commercial Services, International Card Services, and Global Merchant and Network Services. The company’s products and services include credit card, charge card, banking, and other payment and financing products; network services; expense management products and services; and travel and lifestyle services. It also provides merchant acquisition and processing, servicing and settlement, point-of-sale marketing, and information products and services for merchants; and fraud prevention services, as well as the design and operation of customer loyalty programs. In addition, the company operates lounges at airports under Centurion Lounge brand name. It sells its products and services to consumers, small businesses, mid-sized companies, and large corporations through mobile and online applications, affiliate marketing, customer referral programs, third-party service providers and business partners, direct mail, telephone, in-house sales teams, and direct response advertising. American Express Company was founded in 1850 and is headquartered in New York, New York.