Financial Review: Cipher Mining (NASDAQ:CIFR) versus LM Funding America (NASDAQ:LMFA)

Cipher Mining (NASDAQ:CIFR) and LM Funding America (NASDAQ:LMFA) are both business services companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their risk, earnings, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, valuation, dividends and profitability.

Volatility & Risk

Cipher Mining has a beta of 2.41, suggesting that its stock price is 141% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, LM Funding America has a beta of 1.42, suggesting that its stock price is 42% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Cipher Mining and LM Funding America’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Cipher Mining	-33.39%	-8.29%	-7.29%
LM Funding America	-96.23%	-35.84%	-31.86%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

12.3% of Cipher Mining shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 22.7% of LM Funding America shares are held by institutional investors. 2.3% of Cipher Mining shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 36.1% of LM Funding America shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Cipher Mining and LM Funding America, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Cipher Mining	0	0	10	2	3.17
LM Funding America	0	1	0	0	2.00

Cipher Mining presently has a consensus target price of $8.14, suggesting a potential upside of 42.79%. Given Cipher Mining’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts clearly believe Cipher Mining is more favorable than LM Funding America.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Cipher Mining and LM Funding America”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Cipher Mining	$126.84 million	15.63	-$25.78 million	($0.13)	-43.84
LM Funding America	$12.98 million	0.72	-$15.94 million	($4.91)	-0.37

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

Summary

Cipher Mining beats LM Funding America on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

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.

About LM Funding America

LM Funding America, Inc. operates as a cryptocurrency mining and specialty finance company. It operates through two segments, Specialty Finance and Mining Operations. The company also engages in Bitcoin mining operations; and provides funding to nonprofit community associations. The company was founded in 2008 and is based in Tampa, Florida.