Critical Contrast: Teladoc Health (NYSE:TDOC) vs. National Research (NASDAQ:NRC)

National Research (NASDAQ:NRC) and Teladoc Health (NYSE:TDOC) are both small-cap healthcare companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, dividends, analyst recommendations, risk, profitability, valuation and earnings.

Risk and Volatility

National Research has a beta of 0.25, meaning that its stock price is 75% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Teladoc Health has a beta of 2.14, meaning that its stock price is 114% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for National Research and Teladoc Health, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
National Research	0	2	1	0	2.33
Teladoc Health	1	10	5	0	2.25

National Research presently has a consensus target price of $26.00, suggesting a potential upside of 28.78%. Teladoc Health has a consensus target price of $7.54, suggesting a potential upside of 35.90%. Given Teladoc Health’s higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Teladoc Health is more favorable than National Research.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares National Research and Teladoc Health”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
National Research	$137.39 million	3.34	$11.60 million	$0.25	80.76
Teladoc Health	$2.53 billion	0.40	-$200.32 million	($0.99)	-5.60

National Research has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Teladoc Health. Teladoc Health is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than National Research, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares National Research and Teladoc Health’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
National Research	4.18%	164.26%	14.67%
Teladoc Health	-7.13%	-12.15%	-5.83%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

47.3% of National Research shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 76.8% of Teladoc Health shares are held by institutional investors. 9.2% of National Research shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.7% of Teladoc Health shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

National Research beats Teladoc Health on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About National Research

National Research Corporation provides analytics and insights that facilitate measurement and enhancement of the patient and employee experience. Its portfolio of subscription-based solutions provides actionable information and analysis to healthcare organizations across a range of mission-critical, constituent-related elements, including patient experience, service recovery, care transitions, employee engagement, reputation management, and brand loyalty. The company also offers marketing solutions that allow the tracking of awareness, perception, and consistency of healthcare brands; assessment of competitive differentiators; and enhanced segmentation tools to evaluate needs, wants, and behaviors of communities through real-time competitive assessments and enhanced segmentation tools. In addition, it provides experience solutions, such as patient experience, employee engagement, health risk assessments, care transition, and improvement tools. Further, the company provides reputation solutions that allow healthcare organizations to share a picture of their organization and ensure that timely and relevant content informs consumer decision-making; and governance solutions for not-for-profit hospital and health system boards of directors, executives, and physician leadership. National Research Corporation was founded in 1981 and is headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska.

About Teladoc Health

Teladoc Health, Inc. provides virtual healthcare services worldwide. The company operates through Teladoc Health Integrated Care and BetterHelp segments. The Integrated Care segment offers virtual medical services, including general medical, expert medical, specialty medical, chronic condition management, and mental health, as well as enabling technologies and enterprise telehealth solutions for hospitals and health systems. The BetterHelp segment operates a mental health platform that provides online counseling and therapy services through website, mobile applications, phones, and text-based interactions by its licensed clinicians. The company offers its products and services under the Teladoc, Livongo, and BetterHelp brands. It serves employers, health plans, hospitals and health systems, and insurance and financial services companies, as well as individual members. The company was formerly known as Teladoc, Inc. and changed its name to Teladoc Health, Inc. in August 2018. Teladoc Health, Inc. was incorporated in 2002 and is headquartered in Purchase, New York.