Comparing Impinj (NASDAQ:PI) and Nova (NASDAQ:NVMI)

Nova (NASDAQ:NVMI) and Impinj (NASDAQ:PI) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, risk, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, dividends, valuation and profitability.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

83.0% of Nova shares are held by institutional investors. 1.0% of Nova shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 12.4% of Impinj shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current recommendations for Nova and Impinj, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Nova	0	1	8	0	2.89
Impinj	2	3	5	0	2.30

Nova presently has a consensus price target of $426.63, indicating a potential downside of 3.86%. Impinj has a consensus price target of $166.56, indicating a potential upside of 37.60%. Given Impinj’s higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Impinj is more favorable than Nova.

Profitability

This table compares Nova and Impinj’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Nova	29.44%	24.14%	14.79%
Impinj	-3.00%	8.49%	3.11%

Volatility & Risk

Nova has a beta of 1.84, indicating that its share price is 84% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Impinj has a beta of 1.56, indicating that its share price is 56% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Nova and Impinj”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Nova	$880.58 million	14.82	$183.76 million	$8.01	55.40
Impinj	$361.08 million	10.13	-$10.85 million	($0.39)	-310.36

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

Summary

Nova beats Impinj on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Nova

Nova Ltd. designs, develops, produces, and sells process control systems used in the manufacture of semiconductors in Israel, Taiwan, the United States, China, Korea, and internationally. Its product portfolio includes a set of metrology platforms for dimensional, films, and materials and chemical metrology measurements for process control for various semiconductor manufacturing process steps, including lithography, etch, chemical mechanical planarization, deposition, electrochemical plating, and advanced packaging. The company serves various sectors of the integrated circuit manufacturing industry, including logic, foundries, and memory manufacturers, as well as process equipment manufacturers. Nova Ltd. was formerly known as Nova Measuring Instruments Ltd. and changed its name to Nova Ltd. in July 2021. Nova Ltd. was incorporated in 1993 and is headquartered in Rehovot, Israel.

About Impinj

Impinj, Inc. operates a cloud connectivity platform in the Americas, the Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Its platform wirelessly connects items and delivers data about the connected items to business and consumer applications. The company’s platform comprises endpoint ICs, a miniature radios-on-a-chip that attaches to a host item and includes a number to identify the item. Its platform also consists of systems products that consists of reader ICs, readers, and gateways to wirelessly provide power to and communicate bidirectionally with endpoint ICs on host items, as well as to read, write, authenticate, and engage the endpoint ICs on those items; and software and algorithms that enable its partners to solve enterprise business problems, such as retail self-checkout and loss prevention. The company primarily serves retail, supply chain and logistics, automotive, aviation, banking, datacenters, food, healthcare, industrial and manufacturing, linen and uniform tracking, sports, and travel industries through original equipment and device manufacturers, tag service bureaus, systems integrators, value-added resellers, independent software vendors, and other solution partners. Impinj, Inc. was incorporated in 2000 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.