Critical Review: AIX (NASDAQ:AIFU) versus Goosehead Insurance (NASDAQ:GSHD)

Goosehead Insurance (NASDAQ:GSHD) and AIX (NASDAQ:AIFU) are both finance companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, institutional ownership, dividends, analyst recommendations, profitability, risk and earnings.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for Goosehead Insurance and AIX, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Goosehead Insurance	1	4	5	0	2.40
AIX	0	0	0	0	0.00

Goosehead Insurance presently has a consensus target price of $109.10, suggesting a potential downside of 4.70%. Given Goosehead Insurance’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe Goosehead Insurance is more favorable than AIX.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Goosehead Insurance and AIX”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Goosehead Insurance	$314.51 million	13.51	$14.14 million	$1.15	99.55
AIX	$2.36 billion	0.01	$39.50 million	$0.73	0.44

AIX has higher revenue and earnings than Goosehead Insurance. AIX is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Goosehead Insurance, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Goosehead Insurance and AIX’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Goosehead Insurance	6.77%	284.41%	5.53%
AIX	N/A	N/A	N/A

Insider and Institutional Ownership

26.7% of AIX shares are held by institutional investors. 48.3% of Goosehead Insurance shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 25.6% of AIX shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Risk and Volatility

Goosehead Insurance has a beta of 1.49, meaning that its stock price is 49% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, AIX has a beta of -0.15, meaning that its stock price is 115% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Goosehead Insurance beats AIX on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Goosehead Insurance

Goosehead Insurance, Inc. operates as a holding company for Goosehead Financial, LLC that engages in the provision of personal lines insurance agency services in the United States. The company offers homeowner’s, automotive, dwelling property, flood, wind, earthquake, excess liability or umbrella, motorcycle, recreational vehicle, general liability, property, and life insurance products and services. As of December 31, 2023, it operated 1,415 franchise locations. The company was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in Westlake, Texas.

About AIX

AIX, Inc. engages in the provision of agency services and insurance claims adjusting services. It operates through the Insurance Agency and Claims Adjusting segments. The Insurance Agency segment includes providing agency services for insurance products and life insurance products. The Claims Adjusting segment provides pre-underwriting survey services, claims adjusting services, disposal of residual value services, loading and unloading supervision services, and consulting services. The company was founded by Yin An Hu and Qiu Ping Lai in 1998 and is headquartered in Guangzhou, China.