Analyzing Altisource Asset Management (NYSE:AAMC) & Claros Mortgage Trust (NYSE:CMTG)

Altisource Asset Management (NYSE:AAMC) and Claros Mortgage Trust (NYSE:CMTG) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, dividends, profitability, valuation, risk and earnings.

Profitability

This table compares Altisource Asset Management and Claros Mortgage Trust’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Altisource Asset Management	N/A	N/A	-67.03%
Claros Mortgage Trust	-28.16%	1.51%	0.43%

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Altisource Asset Management and Claros Mortgage Trust’s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Altisource Asset Management	-$19.35 million	-0.17	-$32.55 million	$39.83	0.03
Claros Mortgage Trust	$221.91 million	5.05	$6.03 million	($0.62)	-13.03

Claros Mortgage Trust has higher revenue and earnings than Altisource Asset Management. Claros Mortgage Trust is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Altisource Asset Management, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

1.7% of Altisource Asset Management shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 89.5% of Claros Mortgage Trust shares are owned by institutional investors. 4.6% of Altisource Asset Management shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.4% of Claros Mortgage Trust shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Volatility and Risk

Altisource Asset Management has a beta of 1.4, indicating that its stock price is 40% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Claros Mortgage Trust has a beta of 1.53, indicating that its stock price is 53% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current recommendations for Altisource Asset Management and Claros Mortgage Trust, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Altisource Asset Management	0	0	0	0	N/A
Claros Mortgage Trust	1	5	0	0	1.83

Claros Mortgage Trust has a consensus price target of $9.00, indicating a potential upside of 11.39%. Given Claros Mortgage Trust’s higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Claros Mortgage Trust is more favorable than Altisource Asset Management.

Summary

Claros Mortgage Trust beats Altisource Asset Management on 8 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Altisource Asset Management

AAMC has historically been an asset management company that provides portfolio management and corporate governance services to investment vehicles but given the sale and discontinuance of certain operations the Company is in the process of repositioning itself. Additional information is available at www.altisourceamc.com.

About Claros Mortgage Trust

Claros Mortgage Trust, Inc. operates as a real estate investment trust. It focuses on originating senior and subordinate loans on transitional commercial real estate assets in the United States. The company has elected to be taxed as a real estate investment trust. As a result, it would not be subject to corporate income tax on that portion of its net income that is distributed to shareholders. The company was incorporated in 2015 and is headquartered in New York, New York.