AEP vs. AES, CMS, CNP, D, DUK, ED, NEE, WEC, CEG, and NGG
Should you be buying American Electric Power stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of American Electric Power include AES (AES), CMS Energy (CMS), CenterPoint Energy (CNP), Dominion Energy (D), Duke Energy (DUK), Consolidated Edison (ED), NextEra Energy (NEE), WEC Energy Group (WEC), Constellation Energy (CEG), and National Grid Transco (NGG).
American Electric Power vs. Its Competitors
AES (NYSE:AES) and American Electric Power (NASDAQ:AEP) are both utilities companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, profitability, media sentiment, earnings, institutional ownership, risk, analyst recommendations and valuation.
AES currently has a consensus target price of $24.22, suggesting a potential upside of 92.09%. American Electric Power has a consensus target price of $108.31, suggesting a potential upside of 2.82%. Given AES's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe AES is more favorable than American Electric Power.
In the previous week, AES had 28 more articles in the media than American Electric Power. MarketBeat recorded 59 mentions for AES and 31 mentions for American Electric Power. American Electric Power's average media sentiment score of 1.31 beat AES's score of 0.53 indicating that American Electric Power is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
American Electric Power has higher revenue and earnings than AES. AES is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than American Electric Power, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
American Electric Power has a net margin of 13.73% compared to AES's net margin of 10.67%. AES's return on equity of 18.06% beat American Electric Power's return on equity.
AES pays an annual dividend of $0.70 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.6%. American Electric Power pays an annual dividend of $3.72 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.5%. AES pays out 38.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. American Electric Power pays out 71.7% 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. AES has increased its dividend for 12 consecutive years and American Electric Power has increased its dividend for 15 consecutive years. AES is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
93.1% of AES shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 75.2% of American Electric Power shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.6% of AES shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.1% of American Electric Power shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
AES has a beta of 0.95, suggesting that its stock price is 5% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, American Electric Power has a beta of 0.42, suggesting that its stock price is 58% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Summary
AES beats American Electric Power on 11 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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New MarketBeat Followers Over Time
This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding AEP and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
Media Sentiment Over Time
This chart shows the average media sentiment of NASDAQ 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.
American Electric Power Competitors List
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This page (NASDAQ:AEP) was last updated on 7/12/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff
