Booking (NASDAQ:BKNG – Get Free Report) and Ark Restaurants (NASDAQ:ARKR – Get Free Report) are both consumer discretionary companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, dividends, institutional ownership, risk, valuation, earnings and analyst recommendations.
Dividends
Booking pays an annual dividend of $1.68 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.0%. Ark Restaurants pays an annual dividend of $0.18 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.7%. Booking pays out 18.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Ark Restaurants pays out -20.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Booking has raised its dividend for 1 consecutive years. Ark Restaurants is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
Analyst Ratings
This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for Booking and Ark Restaurants, as reported by MarketBeat.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| Booking | 0 | 8 | 27 | 2 | 2.84 |
| Ark Restaurants | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1.00 |
Profitability
This table compares Booking and Ark Restaurants’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| Booking | 25.53% | -102.96% | 26.60% |
| Ark Restaurants | -2.04% | -10.61% | -2.58% |
Valuation & Earnings
This table compares Booking and Ark Restaurants”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| Booking | $26.92 billion | 4.84 | $5.40 billion | $9.04 | 19.18 |
| Ark Restaurants | $155.54 million | 0.11 | -$11.47 million | ($0.88) | -5.57 |
Booking has higher revenue and earnings than Ark Restaurants. Ark Restaurants is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Booking, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Risk & Volatility
Booking has a beta of 1.07, indicating that its share price is 7% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Ark Restaurants has a beta of 0.35, indicating that its share price is 65% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Insider & Institutional Ownership
92.4% of Booking shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 32.0% of Ark Restaurants shares are held by institutional investors. 0.2% of Booking shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 37.5% of Ark Restaurants shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
Summary
Booking beats Ark Restaurants on 14 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.
About Booking
Booking Holdings Inc, formerly The Priceline Group Inc., is a provider of travel and restaurant online reservation and related services. The Company, through its online travel companies (OTCs), connects consumers wishing to make travel reservations with providers of travel services across the world. It offers consumers an array of accommodation reservations (including hotels, bed and breakfasts, hostels, apartments, vacation rentals and other properties) through its Booking.com, priceline.com and agoda.com brands. Its other brands include KAYAK, Rentalcars.com and OpenTable, Inc. (OpenTable). As of December 31, 2016, Booking.com offered accommodation reservation services for over 1,115,000 properties in over 220 countries and territories on its various Websites and in over 40 languages, which included over 568,000 vacation rental properties (updated property counts were available on the Booking.com Website).
About Ark Restaurants
Ark Restaurants Corp., through its subsidiaries, owns and operates restaurants and bars in the United States. It operates restaurants in New York City; Washington, D.C.; Las Vegas, Nevada; Atlantic City, New Jersey; Florida; and Alabama, as well as fast food concepts and catering operations. The company was incorporated in 1983 and is based in New York, New York.
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