UNP vs. NSC, CNI, CP, CSX, UPS, GE, FDX, ODFL, DAL, and WAB
Should you be buying Union Pacific stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Union Pacific include Norfolk Southern (NSC), Canadian National Railway (CNI), Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CP), CSX (CSX), United Parcel Service (UPS), General Electric (GE), FedEx (FDX), Old Dominion Freight Line (ODFL), Delta Air Lines (DAL), and Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies (WAB). These companies are all part of the "transportation" sector.
Union Pacific (NYSE:UNP) and Norfolk Southern (NYSE:NSC) are both large-cap transportation companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, community ranking, media sentiment, dividends, profitability, valuation and risk.
Union Pacific presently has a consensus price target of $259.61, indicating a potential upside of 12.62%. Norfolk Southern has a consensus price target of $261.78, indicating a potential upside of 16.37%. Given Norfolk Southern's higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Norfolk Southern is more favorable than Union Pacific.
Union Pacific has a beta of 1.06, suggesting that its share price is 6% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Norfolk Southern has a beta of 1.3, suggesting that its share price is 30% more volatile than the S&P 500.
80.4% of Union Pacific shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 75.1% of Norfolk Southern shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.3% of Union Pacific shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.2% of Norfolk Southern shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Union Pacific pays an annual dividend of $5.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.3%. Norfolk Southern pays an annual dividend of $5.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.4%. Union Pacific pays out 49.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Norfolk Southern pays out 87.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future.
Union Pacific has higher revenue and earnings than Norfolk Southern. Union Pacific is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Norfolk Southern, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Union Pacific received 434 more outperform votes than Norfolk Southern when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 70.21% of users gave Union Pacific an outperform vote while only 57.47% of users gave Norfolk Southern an outperform vote.
Union Pacific has a net margin of 26.52% compared to Norfolk Southern's net margin of 11.76%. Union Pacific's return on equity of 44.34% beat Norfolk Southern's return on equity.
In the previous week, Norfolk Southern had 15 more articles in the media than Union Pacific. MarketBeat recorded 30 mentions for Norfolk Southern and 15 mentions for Union Pacific. Union Pacific's average media sentiment score of 1.03 beat Norfolk Southern's score of 0.50 indicating that Union Pacific is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Summary
Union Pacific beats Norfolk Southern on 15 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding UNP 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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