AWK vs. WTRG, EIX, ES, TLK, TEF, TU, WEC, AEE, FE, and ETR
Should you be buying American Water Works stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of American Water Works include Essential Utilities (WTRG), Edison International (EIX), Eversource Energy (ES), Perusahaan Perseroan (Persero) PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk (TLK), Telefónica (TEF), TELUS (TU), WEC Energy Group (WEC), Ameren (AEE), FirstEnergy (FE), and Entergy (ETR). These companies are all part of the "utilities" sector.
American Water Works vs.
American Water Works (NYSE:AWK) and Essential Utilities (NYSE:WTRG) are both large-cap utilities companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, institutional ownership, valuation, risk, media sentiment, dividends, community ranking, profitability and analyst recommendations.
American Water Works has a beta of 0.56, suggesting that its stock price is 44% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Essential Utilities has a beta of 0.78, suggesting that its stock price is 22% less volatile than the S&P 500.
American Water Works received 471 more outperform votes than Essential Utilities when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 66.49% of users gave American Water Works an outperform vote while only 36.17% of users gave Essential Utilities an outperform vote.
83.1% of American Water Works shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 70.0% of Essential Utilities shares are held by institutional investors. 0.1% of American Water Works shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.2% of Essential Utilities shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
American Water Works presently has a consensus target price of $158.29, indicating a potential upside of 9.81%. Essential Utilities has a consensus target price of $52.38, indicating a potential upside of 23.12%. Given Essential Utilities' stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Essential Utilities is more favorable than American Water Works.
American Water Works has a net margin of 21.62% compared to Essential Utilities' net margin of 20.33%. American Water Works' return on equity of 10.76% beat Essential Utilities' return on equity.
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.
American Water Works pays an annual dividend of $2.62 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.8%. Essential Utilities pays an annual dividend of $1.15 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.7%. American Water Works pays out 58.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Essential Utilities pays out 65.0% 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.
In the previous week, American Water Works had 7 more articles in the media than Essential Utilities. MarketBeat recorded 15 mentions for American Water Works and 8 mentions for Essential Utilities. American Water Works' average media sentiment score of 0.86 beat Essential Utilities' score of 0.75 indicating that American Water Works is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Summary
American Water Works beats Essential Utilities on 14 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
New MarketBeat Followers Over Time
This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding AWK and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
Skip ChartMedia 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.
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American Water Works Competitors List