WTR vs. AWK, CWT, AWR, SJW, MSEX, YORW, CWCO, ARTNA, CDZI, and WTRG
Should you be buying Aqua America stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Aqua America include American Water Works (AWK), California Water Service Group (CWT), American States Water (AWR), SJW Group (SJW), Middlesex Water (MSEX), York Water (YORW), Consolidated Water (CWCO), Artesian Resources (ARTNA), Cadiz (CDZI), and Essential Utilities (WTRG).
Aqua America (NYSE:WTR) and American Water Works (NYSE:AWK) are both utilities companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their risk, analyst recommendations, valuation, profitability, media sentiment, dividends, institutional ownership, community ranking and earnings.
American Water Works has a net margin of 22.27% compared to Aqua America's net margin of 18.02%. American Water Works' return on equity of 9.74% beat Aqua America's return on equity.
66.5% of Aqua America shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 86.6% of American Water Works shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.3% of Aqua America shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.1% of American Water Works shares are owned 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.
Aqua America has a beta of 0.32, suggesting that its stock price is 68% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, American Water Works has a beta of 0.67, suggesting that its stock price is 33% less volatile than the S&P 500.
American Water Works has a consensus target price of $141.33, suggesting a potential upside of 10.20%. Given American Water Works' higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe American Water Works is more favorable than Aqua America.
American Water Works has higher revenue and earnings than Aqua America. American Water Works is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Aqua America, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Aqua America pays an annual dividend of $0.94 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.5%. American Water Works pays an annual dividend of $3.06 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.4%. Aqua America pays out 66.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. American Water Works pays out 62.1% 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.
In the previous week, American Water Works had 14 more articles in the media than Aqua America. MarketBeat recorded 14 mentions for American Water Works and 0 mentions for Aqua America. American Water Works' average media sentiment score of 1.27 beat Aqua America's score of 0.00 indicating that American Water Works is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
American Water Works received 131 more outperform votes than Aqua America when rated by MarketBeat users. However, 65.81% of users gave Aqua America an outperform vote while only 64.78% of users gave American Water Works an outperform vote.
Summary
American Water Works beats Aqua America on 14 of the 19 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding WTR and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
Skip ChartThis 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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