NWE vs. AVA, ALE, UTL, EVRG, PRMW, CWT, MGEE, PNM, AWR, and SR
Should you be buying NorthWestern Energy Group stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of NorthWestern Energy Group include Avista (AVA), ALLETE (ALE), Unitil (UTL), Evergy (EVRG), Primo Water (PRMW), California Water Service Group (CWT), MGE Energy (MGEE), PNM Resources (PNM), American States Water (AWR), and Spire (SR). These companies are all part of the "utilities" sector.
Avista (NYSE:AVA) and NorthWestern Energy Group (NYSE:NWE) are both mid-cap utilities companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, community ranking, dividends, profitability, risk, valuation, media sentiment and analyst recommendations.
85.2% of Avista shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 96.1% of NorthWestern Energy Group shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.0% of Avista shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.9% of NorthWestern Energy Group shares are owned by 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.
NorthWestern Energy Group has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Avista. Avista is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than NorthWestern Energy Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Avista presently has a consensus price target of $35.00, suggesting a potential downside of 8.81%. NorthWestern Energy Group has a consensus price target of $51.86, suggesting a potential downside of 1.34%. Given Avista's higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe NorthWestern Energy Group is more favorable than Avista.
NorthWestern Energy Group has a net margin of 13.62% compared to NorthWestern Energy Group's net margin of 9.96%. NorthWestern Energy Group's return on equity of 7.65% beat Avista's return on equity.
Avista has a beta of 0.48, meaning that its share price is 52% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, NorthWestern Energy Group has a beta of 0.43, meaning that its share price is 57% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Avista pays an annual dividend of $1.90 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.0%. NorthWestern Energy Group pays an annual dividend of $2.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.9%. Avista pays out 78.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. NorthWestern Energy Group pays out 80.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Avista has raised its dividend for 22 consecutive years and NorthWestern Energy Group has raised its dividend for 20 consecutive years. Avista is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
Avista received 233 more outperform votes than NorthWestern Energy Group when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 47.76% of users gave Avista an outperform vote while only 12.50% of users gave NorthWestern Energy Group an outperform vote.
In the previous week, NorthWestern Energy Group had 4 more articles in the media than Avista. MarketBeat recorded 5 mentions for NorthWestern Energy Group and 1 mentions for Avista. NorthWestern Energy Group's average media sentiment score of 1.76 beat Avista's score of 1.39 indicating that Avista is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Summary
Avista and NorthWestern Energy Group tied by winning 10 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding NWE and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
This chart shows the average media sentiment of NYSE and its competitors over the past 90 days as caculated by MarketBeat. The averaged score is equivalent to the following: Very Negative Sentiment <= -1.5, Negative Sentiment > -1.5 and <= -0.5, Neutral Sentiment > -0.5 and < 0.5, Positive Sentiment >= 0.5 and < 1.5, and Very Positive Sentiment >= 1.5.
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