AWK vs. CWCO, GWRS, MSEX, AWR, CMS, CWT, WTRG, SJW, YORW, and ARTNA
Should you be buying American Water Works stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of American Water Works include Consolidated Water (CWCO), Global Water Resources (GWRS), Middlesex Water (MSEX), American States Water (AWR), CMS Energy (CMS), California Water Service Group (CWT), Essential Utilities (WTRG), SJW Group (SJW), York Water (YORW), and Artesian Resources (ARTNA). These companies are all part of the "utilities" sector.
American Water Works vs. Its Competitors
Consolidated Water (NASDAQ:CWCO) and American Water Works (NYSE:AWK) are both utilities companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, profitability, media sentiment, risk, valuation, dividends and earnings.
American Water Works has a consensus price target of $143.22, suggesting a potential upside of 2.37%. Given American Water Works' stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe American Water Works is more favorable than Consolidated Water.
American Water Works has higher revenue and earnings than Consolidated Water. Consolidated Water 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 has a net margin of 22.24% compared to Consolidated Water's net margin of 20.75%. American Water Works' return on equity of 10.35% beat Consolidated Water's return on equity.
Consolidated Water has a beta of 0.47, meaning that its stock price is 53% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, American Water Works has a beta of 0.69, meaning that its stock price is 31% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Consolidated Water pays an annual dividend of $0.56 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.8%. American Water Works pays an annual dividend of $3.31 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.4%. Consolidated Water pays out 34.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. American Water Works pays out 60.3% 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. Consolidated Water has increased its dividend for 2 consecutive years and American Water Works has increased its dividend for 18 consecutive years. American Water Works is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
In the previous week, American Water Works had 26 more articles in the media than Consolidated Water. MarketBeat recorded 28 mentions for American Water Works and 2 mentions for Consolidated Water. American Water Works' average media sentiment score of 1.17 beat Consolidated Water's score of 0.20 indicating that American Water Works is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
55.2% of Consolidated Water shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 86.6% of American Water Works shares are held by institutional investors. 6.3% of Consolidated Water shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.1% of American Water Works shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
Summary
American Water Works beats Consolidated Water on 16 of the 19 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 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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This page (NYSE:AWK) was last updated on 7/3/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff