UTL vs. MGEE, ARRY, HE, NEE, SO, DUK, EIX, ETR, FE, and PPL
Should you be buying Unitil stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Unitil include MGE Energy (MGEE), Array Technologies (ARRY), Hawaiian Electric Industries (HE), NextEra Energy (NEE), Southern (SO), Duke Energy (DUK), Edison International (EIX), Entergy (ETR), FirstEnergy (FE), and PPL (PPL). These companies are all part of the "electric utilities" industry.
Unitil (NYSE:UTL) and MGE Energy (NASDAQ:MGEE) are both utilities companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, risk, analyst recommendations, community ranking, media sentiment, dividends, institutional ownership, valuation and profitability.
In the previous week, Unitil had 1 more articles in the media than MGE Energy. MarketBeat recorded 1 mentions for Unitil and 0 mentions for MGE Energy. Unitil's average media sentiment score of 1.00 equaled MGE Energy'saverage media sentiment score.
76.8% of Unitil shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 52.6% of MGE Energy shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.9% of Unitil shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.2% of MGE Energy shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
Unitil has a beta of 0.61, indicating that its stock price is 39% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, MGE Energy has a beta of 0.73, indicating that its stock price is 27% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Unitil pays an annual dividend of $1.70 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.3%. MGE Energy pays an annual dividend of $1.71 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.2%. Unitil pays out 56.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. MGE Energy pays out 51.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years.
Unitil currently has a consensus price target of $51.00, suggesting a potential upside of 0.06%. MGE Energy has a consensus price target of $68.00, suggesting a potential downside of 11.63%. Given Unitil's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Unitil is more favorable than MGE Energy.
MGE Energy has higher revenue and earnings than Unitil. Unitil is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than MGE Energy, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Unitil received 122 more outperform votes than MGE Energy when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 61.79% of users gave Unitil an outperform vote while only 55.38% of users gave MGE Energy an outperform vote.
MGE Energy has a net margin of 18.12% compared to Unitil's net margin of 9.37%. MGE Energy's return on equity of 10.60% beat Unitil's return on equity.
Summary
MGE Energy beats Unitil on 10 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding UTL 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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