Reviewing Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD) & Benchmark Energy (OTCMKTS:BMRK)

Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD) and Benchmark Energy (OTCMKTS:BMRK) are both finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, valuation, risk, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, earnings and profitability.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and price targets for Applied Digital and Benchmark Energy, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Applied Digital	0	0	7	0	3.00
Benchmark Energy	0	0	0	0	0.00

Applied Digital presently has a consensus price target of $11.14, indicating a potential upside of 28.08%. Given Applied Digital’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Applied Digital is more favorable than Benchmark Energy.

Volatility & Risk

Applied Digital has a beta of 4.78, meaning that its share price is 378% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Benchmark Energy has a beta of 3.86, meaning that its share price is 286% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

65.7% of Applied Digital shares are held by institutional investors. 11.8% of Applied Digital shares are held by 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.

Profitability

This table compares Applied Digital and Benchmark Energy’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Applied Digital	-74.95%	-88.87%	-20.16%
Benchmark Energy	N/A	N/A	N/A

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Applied Digital and Benchmark Energy”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Applied Digital	$189.96 million	9.68	-$149.27 million	($1.17)	-7.44
Benchmark Energy	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

Benchmark Energy has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Applied Digital.

Summary

Applied Digital beats Benchmark Energy on 7 of the 10 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Applied Digital

Applied Digital Corporation designs, develops, and operates datacenters in North America. Its datacenters provide digital infrastructure solutions to the high-performance computing industry. The company also provides artificial intelligence cloud services, high performance computing datacenter hosting, and crypto datacenter hosting services. The company was formerly known as Applied Blockchain, Inc. and changed its name to Applied Digital Corporation in November 2022. Applied Digital Corporation is based in Dallas, Texas.

About Benchmark Energy

Benchmark Energy Corporation, through its subsidiary, Energy Partners LLC, buys industrial grade glycerin and sells it to boiler plants as an alternative bunker fuel in the United States and internationally. The company offers crude and refined glycerin, a co-product of biodiesel production used in various industrial and commercial applications, such as power, energy, and boiler operations, as well as in the de-icing process and manufacturing of animal feed. It has a strategic relationship with the University of North Dakota (UND) to utilize industrial grade glycerin as an additive to the UND coal-burning plant. The company is based in Coldspring, Texas.