SemiLEDs (NASDAQ:LEDS) versus POET Technologies (NASDAQ:POET) Critical Contrast

SemiLEDs (NASDAQ:LEDS) and POET Technologies (NASDAQ:POET) are both small-cap computer and technology companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, valuation, dividends, profitability, risk and analyst recommendations.

Profitability

This table compares SemiLEDs and POET Technologies’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
SemiLEDs	-41.41%	-81.97%	-17.62%
POET Technologies	N/A	-194.16%	-132.32%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current recommendations for SemiLEDs and POET Technologies, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
SemiLEDs	0	0	0	0	0.00
POET Technologies	0	0	2	1	3.33

POET Technologies has a consensus price target of $6.25, suggesting a potential upside of 83.28%. Given POET Technologies’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe POET Technologies is more favorable than SemiLEDs.

Risk and Volatility

SemiLEDs has a beta of 1.09, indicating that its share price is 9% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, POET Technologies has a beta of 0.38, indicating that its share price is 62% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

76.3% of SemiLEDs shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 2.0% of POET Technologies shares are owned by institutional investors. 52.1% of SemiLEDs shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.5% of POET Technologies shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares SemiLEDs and POET Technologies”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
SemiLEDs	$4.79 million	2.48	-$2.04 million	($0.33)	-5.00
POET Technologies	$119,946.00	2,218.49	-$20.27 million	($0.59)	-5.78

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

Summary

SemiLEDs beats POET Technologies on 9 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About SemiLEDs

SemiLEDs Corporation develops, manufactures, and sells light emitting diode (LED) chips, LED components, and LED modules and systems in the United States, Taiwan, the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, and internationally. The company also sells enhanced vertical, LED product series in blue, white, green, and UV; LED chips to packagers or distributors; and lighting products primarily to original design manufacturers of lighting products and the end-users of lighting devices, as well as packs and sells its LED chips. Its products are used for general lighting applications, including commercial, industrial, and residential lighting; and specialty industrial applications, such as ultraviolet or UV, curing of polymers, LED light therapy in medical/cosmetic applications, counterfeit detection, germicidal and viricidal devices LED lighting for horticulture applications, architectural lighting, and entertainment lighting. The company was incorporated in 2005 and is based in Chu-Nan, Taiwan.

About POET Technologies

POET Technologies Inc. designs, develops, manufactures, and sells discrete and integrated opto-electronic solutions in Canada, the United States, Singapore, and China. It offers integration solutions based on the POET Optical Interposer, a novel platform that allows the seamless integration of electronic and photonic devices into a single multi-chip module using advanced wafer-level semiconductor manufacturing techniques. It also develops photonic integrated components. The company serves the data center, telecommunications, Internet of things and industrial sensing, automotive LIDAR, optical coherence tomography for medical devices, and virtual reality systems markets. The company was formerly known as Opel Technologies Inc. and changed its name to POET Technologies Inc. in June 2013. POET Technologies Inc. was incorporated in 1972 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.