Contrasting Cipher Mining (NASDAQ:CIFR) & CURO Group (NYSE:CURO)

CURO Group (NYSE:CURO) and Cipher Mining (NASDAQ:CIFR) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, analyst recommendations, earnings, dividends, profitability, risk and institutional ownership.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for CURO Group and Cipher Mining, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
CURO Group	0	1	0	0	2.00
Cipher Mining	0	1	6	0	2.86

CURO Group presently has a consensus target price of $3.00, suggesting a potential upside of 3,783.50%. Cipher Mining has a consensus target price of $5.50, suggesting a potential upside of 39.24%. Given CURO Group’s higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe CURO Group is more favorable than Cipher Mining.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

39.9% of CURO Group shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 12.3% of Cipher Mining shares are owned by institutional investors. 26.1% of CURO Group shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 2.3% of Cipher Mining shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Volatility and Risk

CURO Group has a beta of 2.21, indicating that its share price is 121% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Cipher Mining has a beta of 2.32, indicating that its share price is 132% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares CURO Group and Cipher Mining’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
CURO Group	-35.34%	N/A	-8.23%
Cipher Mining	-20.32%	-6.78%	-5.69%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares CURO Group and Cipher Mining’s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
CURO Group	$418.33 million	0.01	-$266.73 million	($6.49)	-0.01
Cipher Mining	$126.84 million	9.23	-$25.78 million	($0.10)	-39.50

Cipher Mining has lower revenue, but higher earnings than CURO Group. Cipher Mining is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than CURO Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Cipher Mining beats CURO Group on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About CURO Group

CURO Group Holdings Corp., together with its subsidiaries, provides consumer finance products in the United States and Canada. The company offers secured and unsecured installment loans, revolving line of credit, and single-pay loans; and credit protection insurance, check cashing, money transfer, foreign currency exchange, and other ancillary financial products and services, as well as reloadable prepaid debit cards and demand deposit accounts. The company also provides loans through online. It operates under the Covington Credit, Heights Finance, Quick Credit, Southern Finance, First Heritage Credit, Cash Money, LendDirect, and Flexiti brands. The company was formerly known as Speedy Group Holdings Corp. and changed its name to CURO Group Holdings Corp. in May 2016. CURO Group Holdings Corp. was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

About Cipher Mining

Cipher Mining Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the development and operation of industrial scale bitcoin mining data centers in the United States. The company was incorporated in 2020 and is based in New York, New York. Cipher Mining Inc. operates as a subsidiary of Bitfury Holding B.V.