SO vs. EIX, ETR, FE, PPL, NEE, AEP, D, DTE, DUK, and PCG
Should you be buying Southern stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Southern include Edison International (EIX), Entergy (ETR), FirstEnergy (FE), PPL (PPL), NextEra Energy (NEE), American Electric Power (AEP), Dominion Energy (D), DTE Energy (DTE), Duke Energy (DUK), and PG&E (PCG). These companies are all part of the "utilities" sector.
Edison International (NYSE:EIX) and Southern (NYSE:SO) are both large-cap utilities companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, risk, community ranking, valuation, profitability, earnings, institutional ownership, dividends and media sentiment.
Edison International received 219 more outperform votes than Southern when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 63.25% of users gave Edison International an outperform vote while only 50.05% of users gave Southern an outperform vote.
Edison International has a beta of 0.95, meaning that its share price is 5% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Southern has a beta of 0.48, meaning that its share price is 52% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Southern has a net margin of 16.74% compared to Southern's net margin of 6.14%. Southern's return on equity of 12.48% beat Edison International's return on equity.
89.0% of Edison International shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 64.1% of Southern shares are held by institutional investors. 1.2% of Edison International shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.2% of Southern shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
Edison International presently has a consensus target price of $76.00, suggesting a potential upside of 1.51%. Southern has a consensus target price of $75.73, suggesting a potential downside of 2.57%. Given Southern's higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Edison International is more favorable than Southern.
In the previous week, Edison International had 11 more articles in the media than Southern. MarketBeat recorded 21 mentions for Edison International and 10 mentions for Southern. Edison International's average media sentiment score of 1.17 beat Southern's score of 0.69 indicating that Southern is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Southern has higher revenue and earnings than Edison International. Southern is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Edison International, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Edison International pays an annual dividend of $3.12 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.2%. Southern pays an annual dividend of $2.88 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.7%. Edison International pays out 136.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Southern pays out 74.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Edison International has increased its dividend for 21 consecutive years and Southern has increased its dividend for 24 consecutive years.
Summary
Southern beats Edison International on 12 of the 22 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding SO 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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