Critical Contrast: Conduent (NASDAQ:CNDT) versus PPJ Healthcare Enterprises (OTCMKTS:PPJE)

Conduent (NASDAQ:CNDT) and PPJ Healthcare Enterprises (OTCMKTS:PPJE) are both small-cap business services companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, risk, dividends, profitability, analyst recommendations, earnings and valuation.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current recommendations and price targets for Conduent and PPJ Healthcare Enterprises, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Conduent	0	0	1	0	3.00
PPJ Healthcare Enterprises	0	0	0	0	0.00

Conduent presently has a consensus target price of $9.00, indicating a potential upside of 124.72%. Given Conduent’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Conduent is more favorable than PPJ Healthcare Enterprises.

Volatility & Risk

Conduent has a beta of 1.44, indicating that its stock price is 44% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, PPJ Healthcare Enterprises has a beta of 0.64, indicating that its stock price is 36% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Conduent and PPJ Healthcare Enterprises’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Conduent	12.65%	-7.94%	-1.99%
PPJ Healthcare Enterprises	-8.43%	N/A	N/A

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Conduent and PPJ Healthcare Enterprises”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Conduent	$3.72 billion	0.17	-$296.00 million	$2.27	1.76
PPJ Healthcare Enterprises	$710,000.00	0.78	$80,000.00	N/A	N/A

PPJ Healthcare Enterprises has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Conduent.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

77.3% of Conduent shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.8% of Conduent shares are owned by company 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

Conduent beats PPJ Healthcare Enterprises on 8 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Conduent

Conduent Incorporated provides digital business solutions and services for the commercial, government, and transportation spectrum in the United States, Europe, and internationally. It operates through three segments: Commercial, Government Services, and Transportation. The Commercial segment offers business process services and customized solutions to clients in various industries; and customer experience management, business operations, healthcare claims and administration, and human capital solutions. The Government segment provides government-centric business process services to the United States federal, state, local, and foreign governments for public assistance, program administration, transaction processing, and payment services; and digital payments, child support payments, government healthcare, and eligibility and enrollment solutions. The Transportation segment offers systems, support, and revenue-generating solutions to government transportation agency clients; and public safety, mobility, and digital payment solutions. This segment also provides electronic tolling, urban congestion management, and mileage-based user solutions; transit solutions; citation and permit administration, parking enforcement, and curbside demand management solutions; and computer-aided dispatch/automatic vehicle location solutions. Conduent Incorporated was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Florham Park, New Jersey.

About PPJ Healthcare Enterprises

PPJ Healthcare Enterprises, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides automated healthcare reimbursement cycle, online health information digital-systems, and practice information management digital-system software to health care providers and general businesses worldwide. The company offers the Automated Biller, a medical billing system that allows physicians to bill their medical insurance claims at the point of service without data entry, coding, or billing personnel. It also provides billing, specialty medical billing, collection, and workers comp lien collection services for health care providers in the areas of pain management, anesthesia and surgery centers practices, and various specialties of medicine. The company was formerly known as PPJ Enterprise and changed its name to PPJ Healthcare Enterprises, Inc. in October 2014. PPJ Healthcare Enterprises, Inc. was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Reno, Nevada.