WTRG vs. AWK, SBS, CWT, AWR, SJW, MSEX, YORW, CWCO, ARTNA, and GWRS
Should you be buying Essential Utilities stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Essential Utilities include American Water Works (AWK), Companhia de Saneamento Básico do Estado de São Paulo - SABESP (SBS), California Water Service Group (CWT), American States Water (AWR), SJW Group (SJW), Middlesex Water (MSEX), York Water (YORW), Consolidated Water (CWCO), Artesian Resources (ARTNA), and Global Water Resources (GWRS). These companies are all part of the "water supply" industry.
Essential Utilities (NYSE:WTRG) and American Water Works (NYSE:AWK) are both large-cap utilities companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, community ranking, profitability, earnings, dividends, institutional ownership, media sentiment, analyst recommendations and risk.
Essential Utilities has a net margin of 29.52% compared to American Water Works' net margin of 22.27%. American Water Works' return on equity of 9.74% beat Essential Utilities' return on equity.
In the previous week, American Water Works had 10 more articles in the media than Essential Utilities. MarketBeat recorded 13 mentions for American Water Works and 3 mentions for Essential Utilities. Essential Utilities' average media sentiment score of 1.75 beat American Water Works' score of 1.26 indicating that Essential Utilities is being referred to more favorably in the media.
American Water Works has higher revenue and earnings than Essential Utilities. Essential Utilities is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than American Water Works, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
74.8% of Essential Utilities shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 86.6% of American Water Works shares are held by institutional investors. 0.2% of Essential Utilities shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.1% of American Water Works shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
American Water Works received 469 more outperform votes than Essential Utilities when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 64.78% of users gave American Water Works an outperform vote while only 30.14% of users gave Essential Utilities an outperform vote.
Essential Utilities has a beta of 0.84, meaning that its stock price is 16% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, American Water Works has a beta of 0.67, meaning that its stock price is 33% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Essential Utilities currently has a consensus target price of $43.00, indicating a potential upside of 16.28%. American Water Works has a consensus target price of $141.33, indicating a potential upside of 10.20%. Given Essential Utilities' stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts plainly believe Essential Utilities is more favorable than American Water Works.
Essential Utilities pays an annual dividend of $1.23 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.3%. American Water Works pays an annual dividend of $3.06 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.4%. Essential Utilities pays out 58.3% 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. Essential Utilities is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
Summary
American Water Works beats Essential Utilities on 11 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding WTRG 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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