Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG) & Qualstar (OTCMKTS:QBAK) Head-To-Head Review

Qualstar (OTCMKTS:QBAK) and Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, valuation, risk, earnings, profitability, institutional ownership and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings for Qualstar and Pure Storage, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Qualstar	0	0	0	0	0.00
Pure Storage	1	6	12	0	2.58

Pure Storage has a consensus target price of $94.32, suggesting a potential upside of 43.93%. Given Pure Storage’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Pure Storage is more favorable than Qualstar.

Risk & Volatility

Qualstar has a beta of -0.26, meaning that its stock price is 126% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Pure Storage has a beta of 1.29, meaning that its stock price is 29% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

83.4% of Pure Storage shares are owned by institutional investors. 37.5% of Qualstar shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 5.6% of Pure Storage shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Qualstar and Pure Storage”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Qualstar	$8.04 million	3.25	-$470,000.00	$0.41	46.22
Pure Storage	$3.66 billion	5.91	$188.18 million	$0.55	119.15

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

Profitability

This table compares Qualstar and Pure Storage’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Qualstar	8.35%	N/A	N/A
Pure Storage	5.14%	14.36%	4.64%

Summary

Pure Storage beats Qualstar on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Qualstar

Qualstar Corporation engages in power solutions and data storage systems businesses worldwide. The company operates through two segments, Power Solutions and Data Storage Systems. It provides data storage systems under the Qualstar brand and power solutions under the N2Power brand. The company designs, manufactures, and sells switching power supplies that are used to convert AC line voltage to DC voltages; or DC voltages to other DC voltages for use in various electronic equipment, such as telecommunications equipment, machine tools, routers, switches, wireless systems, and gaming devices. It also supports and sells data storage devices used to store, retrieve, and manage electronic data primarily in network computing environments. The company serves original equipment manufacturers, information technology departments, and lower and middle market companies through distributor and reseller network, distributors, and independent outside sales representatives. Qualstar Corporation was founded in 1984 and is based in Camarillo, California.

About Pure Storage

Pure Storage, Inc. engages in the provision of data storage and management technologies, products, and services in the United States and internationally. Its Purity software is shared across its products and provides enterprise-class data services, such as always-on data reduction, data protection, and encryption, as well as storage protocols, including block, file, and object. The company also provides FlashArray integrated hardware systems, including FlashArray//X, FlashArray//C, FlashArray//XL, FlashArray//E, and FlashArray File Services for block-oriented storage, addressing databases, applications, virtual machines, and other traditional workloads; and FlashBlade integrated hardware systems comprising FlashBlade//S and FlashBlade//E for managing and processing unstructured data workloads of various types from real-time log analytics and commercial high-performance computing (HPC) to data protection and recovery. In addition, it offers cloud-native storage solutions, such as Portworx by Pure Storage, a cloud-native Kubernetes data management solution; and Portworx Data Services, a Database-as-a-Service platform for Kubernetes. Further, the company provides Pure Fusion, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) management plane, which enables storage administrators to unify storage arrays and optimize storage pools; Evergreen Architecture comprising Pure1, an AI-driven cloud-based management platform, as well as Evergreen//One and Evergreen//Flex data storage solutions; and Cloud Block Store, a virtual block storage array, that provides customers the flexibility to operate a hybrid cloud model with seamless data mobility across on-premises and public cloud environments. It sells its products and subscription services through direct sales force and channel partners. The company was formerly known as OS76, Inc. and changed its name to Pure Storage, Inc. in January 2010. Pure Storage, Inc. was incorporated in 2009 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.