Head to Head Contrast: HireQuest (NASDAQ:HQI) and Forrester Research (NASDAQ:FORR)

Forrester Research (NASDAQ:FORR) and HireQuest (NASDAQ:HQI) are both small-cap industrials companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, valuation, analyst recommendations, earnings, profitability, risk and dividends.

Risk and Volatility

Forrester Research has a beta of 0.98, suggesting that its stock price is 2% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, HireQuest has a beta of 1.16, suggesting that its stock price is 16% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

55.2% of Forrester Research shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 12.0% of HireQuest shares are held by institutional investors. 40.7% of Forrester Research shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 42.9% of HireQuest shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Dividends

Forrester Research pays an annual dividend of $0.80 per share and has a dividend yield of 8.4%. HireQuest pays an annual dividend of $0.24 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.4%. Forrester Research pays out -33.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. HireQuest pays out 42.1% 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. Forrester Research is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for Forrester Research and HireQuest, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Forrester Research	1	1	0	0	1.50
HireQuest	0	1	2	0	2.67

HireQuest has a consensus price target of $19.00, indicating a potential upside of 13.70%. Given HireQuest’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe HireQuest is more favorable than Forrester Research.

Profitability

This table compares Forrester Research and HireQuest’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Forrester Research	-11.17%	6.19%	1.93%
HireQuest	27.06%	16.35%	12.11%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Forrester Research and HireQuest”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Forrester Research	$372.85 million	0.49	-$119.36 million	($2.37)	-4.04
HireQuest	$30.15 million	7.70	$6.33 million	$0.57	29.32

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

Summary

HireQuest beats Forrester Research on 12 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Forrester Research

Forrester Research, Inc. operates as an independent research and advisory company in the United States and internationally. The company operates in three segments: Research, Consulting, and Events. The Research segment primary subscription research services include Forrester Decisions, Forrester Research, and SiriusDecisions Research, which are designed to provide business and technology leaders with a proven path to growth through customer obsession. This segment delivers content, such as future trends, predictions, and market forecasts; deep consumer and business buyer data and insights; curated best practice models and tools to run business functions; operational and performance benchmarking data; and technology and service market landscapes and vendor evaluations. The Consulting segment provides consulting projects, include conducting maturity assessments, prioritizing best practices, developing strategies, building business cases, selecting technology vendors, structuring organizations, developing content marketing strategies and collateral, and sales tools; and advisory services. The Events segment hosts events related to business-to-business marketing, sales and product leadership, customer experience, security and risk, new technology and innovation, and data strategies and insights. The company sells its products and services through direct sales force in various locations. Forrester Research, Inc. was incorporated in 1983 and is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

About HireQuest

HireQuest, Inc. provides temporary staffing services in the United States. It offers staffing services, including direct-dispatch, executive search, consultant, unskilled and semi-skilled industrial and construction personnel, clerical and administrative personnel, and permanent placement services, as well as commercial and non-CDL drivers, and skilled personnel in the medical and dental industries. The company provides its services under the HireQuest Direct, HireQuest, SNelling, DriverQuest, HireQuest Health, Northbound Executive Search, and MRI trade names. It serves construction, recycling, warehousing, logistics, auctioneering, manufacturing, hospitality, landscaping, and retail industries, as well as dental practices. HireQuest, Inc. was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Goose Creek, South Carolina.