CSX vs. NSC, CP, CNI, UNP, FDX, ODFL, RYAAY, WAB, JBHT, and UPS
Should you be buying CSX stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of CSX include Norfolk Southern (NSC), Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CP), Canadian National Railway (CNI), Union Pacific (UNP), FedEx (FDX), Old Dominion Freight Line (ODFL), Ryanair (RYAAY), Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies (WAB), J.B. Hunt Transport Services (JBHT), and United Parcel Service (UPS). These companies are all part of the "transportation" sector.
Norfolk Southern (NYSE:NSC) and CSX (NASDAQ:CSX) are both large-cap transportation companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, analyst recommendations, valuation, profitability, earnings, media sentiment, institutional ownership, community ranking and risk.
In the previous week, Norfolk Southern had 26 more articles in the media than CSX. MarketBeat recorded 56 mentions for Norfolk Southern and 30 mentions for CSX. Norfolk Southern's average media sentiment score of 0.46 beat CSX's score of 0.42 indicating that CSX is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Norfolk Southern currently has a consensus price target of $262.33, indicating a potential upside of 6.83%. CSX has a consensus price target of $37.28, indicating a potential upside of 6.08%. Given CSX's higher probable upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Norfolk Southern is more favorable than CSX.
CSX has a net margin of 25.35% compared to CSX's net margin of 15.03%. Norfolk Southern's return on equity of 30.52% beat CSX's return on equity.
Norfolk Southern received 261 more outperform votes than CSX when rated by MarketBeat users. However, 62.49% of users gave CSX an outperform vote while only 57.31% of users gave Norfolk Southern an outperform vote.
Norfolk Southern pays an annual dividend of $5.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.2%. CSX pays an annual dividend of $0.48 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.4%. Norfolk Southern pays out 67.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. CSX pays out 26.1% 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. Norfolk Southern has increased its dividend for 3 consecutive years and CSX has increased its dividend for 20 consecutive years.
Norfolk Southern has a beta of 1.3, meaning that its stock price is 30% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, CSX has a beta of 1.18, meaning that its stock price is 18% more volatile than the S&P 500.
CSX has higher revenue and earnings than Norfolk Southern. CSX is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Norfolk Southern, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
75.1% of Norfolk Southern shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 73.6% of CSX shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.2% of Norfolk Southern shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.6% of CSX shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
Summary
CSX beats Norfolk Southern on 12 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding CSX 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 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.
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