AES vs. ATO, AGR, CMS, LNT, CNP, VIV, NI, WTRG, PPL, and FTS
Should you be buying AES stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of AES include Atmos Energy (ATO), Avangrid (AGR), CMS Energy (CMS), Alliant Energy (LNT), CenterPoint Energy (CNP), Telefônica Brasil (VIV), NiSource (NI), Essential Utilities (WTRG), PPL (PPL), and Fortis (FTS). These companies are all part of the "utilities" sector.
AES vs.
AES (NYSE:AES) and Atmos Energy (NYSE:ATO) are both large-cap utilities companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their community ranking, risk, analyst recommendations, media sentiment, earnings, valuation, institutional ownership, dividends and profitability.
95.5% of AES shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 91.0% of Atmos Energy shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.0% of AES shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.5% of Atmos Energy shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
In the previous week, Atmos Energy had 3 more articles in the media than AES. MarketBeat recorded 10 mentions for Atmos Energy and 7 mentions for AES. Atmos Energy's average media sentiment score of 1.41 beat AES's score of 0.34 indicating that Atmos Energy is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Atmos Energy has a net margin of 17.06% compared to AES's net margin of -3.99%. AES's return on equity of 37.94% beat Atmos Energy's return on equity.
AES pays an annual dividend of $0.66 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.8%. Atmos Energy pays an annual dividend of $2.96 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.7%. AES pays out -75.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Atmos Energy pays out 51.8% 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 is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
AES presently has a consensus target price of $31.00, indicating a potential upside of 32.14%. Atmos Energy has a consensus target price of $121.88, indicating a potential upside of 9.28%. Given AES's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts plainly believe AES is more favorable than Atmos Energy.
AES has a beta of 0.94, suggesting that its stock price is 6% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Atmos Energy has a beta of 0.61, suggesting that its stock price is 39% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Atmos Energy received 90 more outperform votes than AES when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 66.09% of users gave Atmos Energy an outperform vote while only 62.94% of users gave AES an outperform vote.
Atmos Energy has lower revenue, but higher earnings than AES. AES is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Atmos Energy, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Summary
AES and Atmos Energy tied by winning 10 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
New MarketBeat Followers Over Time
This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding AES 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 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.
