Fortuna Silver Mines (NYSE:FSM) & Vizsla Silver (NYSE:VZLA) Head to Head Analysis

Fortuna Silver Mines (NYSE:FSM) and Vizsla Silver (NYSE:VZLA) are both small-cap basic materials companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, institutional ownership, dividends, valuation, analyst recommendations, earnings and risk.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for Fortuna Silver Mines and Vizsla Silver, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Fortuna Silver Mines	0	1	0	0	2.00
Vizsla Silver	0	0	2	0	3.00

Fortuna Silver Mines presently has a consensus price target of $6.00, suggesting a potential upside of 29.03%. Vizsla Silver has a consensus price target of $4.33, suggesting a potential upside of 121.09%. Given Vizsla Silver’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Vizsla Silver is more favorable than Fortuna Silver Mines.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

33.8% of Fortuna Silver Mines shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 22.5% of Vizsla Silver shares are held by institutional investors. 1.0% of Fortuna Silver Mines shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 7.9% of Vizsla Silver shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Fortuna Silver Mines and Vizsla Silver’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Fortuna Silver Mines	-3.94%	6.04%	4.02%
Vizsla Silver	N/A	-6.60%	-6.49%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Fortuna Silver Mines and Vizsla Silver’s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Fortuna Silver Mines	$842.43 million	1.69	-$50.84 million	($0.11)	-42.27
Vizsla Silver	N/A	N/A	-$11.81 million	($0.05)	-39.20

Vizsla Silver has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Fortuna Silver Mines. Fortuna Silver Mines is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Vizsla Silver, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Risk and Volatility

Fortuna Silver Mines has a beta of 1.58, meaning that its stock price is 58% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Vizsla Silver has a beta of 0.99, meaning that its stock price is 1% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Vizsla Silver beats Fortuna Silver Mines on 8 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Fortuna Silver Mines

Fortuna Silver Mines Inc. engages in the precious and base metal mining in Argentina, Burkina Faso, Mexico, Peru, and Côte d'Ivoire. It operates through Mansfield, Sanu, Sango, Cuzcatlan, Bateas, and Corporate segments. The company primarily explores for silver, lead, zinc, and gold. Its flagship project is the Séguéla gold mine, which consists of approximately 62,000 hectares and is located in the Worodougou Region of the Woroba District, Côte d'Ivoire. The company was formerly known as Fortuna Ventures Inc. and changed its name to Fortuna Silver Mines Inc. in June 2005. Fortuna Silver Mines Inc. was incorporated in 1990 and is based in Vancouver, Canada.

About Vizsla Silver

Vizsla Silver Corp. engages in the exploration, and development of precious and base metal assets. The company explores for gold, silver, and copper deposits. It owns 100% interest in the Panuco Project covering an area of 7,189.5 hectares located in located in southern Sinaloa, Mexico. The company was formerly known as Vizsla Resources Corp. and changed its name to Vizsla Silver Corp. in February 2021. Vizsla Silver Corp. was incorporated in 2017 and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.