ES vs. SO, DUK, EIX, ETR, FE, PPL, PNW, OGE, IDA, and POR
Should you be buying Eversource Energy stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Eversource Energy include Southern (SO), Duke Energy (DUK), Edison International (EIX), Entergy (ETR), FirstEnergy (FE), PPL (PPL), Pinnacle West Capital (PNW), OGE Energy (OGE), IDACORP (IDA), and Portland General Electric (POR). These companies are all part of the "electric utilities" industry.
Southern (NYSE:SO) and Eversource Energy (NYSE:ES) are both large-cap utilities companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, earnings, dividends, media sentiment, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, community ranking, risk and valuation.
Southern presently has a consensus target price of $76.50, indicating a potential downside of 6.91%. Eversource Energy has a consensus target price of $66.43, indicating a potential upside of 2.99%. Given Southern's higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Eversource Energy is more favorable than Southern.
In the previous week, Eversource Energy had 3 more articles in the media than Southern. MarketBeat recorded 21 mentions for Eversource Energy and 18 mentions for Southern. Southern's average media sentiment score of 1.12 beat Eversource Energy's score of 0.94 indicating that Eversource Energy is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
64.1% of Southern shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 80.0% of Eversource Energy shares are held by institutional investors. 0.2% of Southern shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.4% of Eversource Energy shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Southern has higher revenue and earnings than Eversource Energy. Eversource Energy is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Southern, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Southern has a beta of 0.51, suggesting that its stock price is 49% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Eversource Energy has a beta of 0.59, suggesting that its stock price is 41% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Southern received 67 more outperform votes than Eversource Energy when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 49.86% of users gave Southern an outperform vote while only 47.19% of users gave Eversource Energy an outperform vote.
Southern pays an annual dividend of $2.88 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.5%. Eversource Energy pays an annual dividend of $2.86 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.4%. Southern pays out 74.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Eversource Energy pays out -242.4% 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. Southern has increased its dividend for 24 consecutive years and Eversource Energy has increased its dividend for 26 consecutive years. Eversource Energy is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
Southern has a net margin of 16.74% compared to Southern's net margin of -3.60%. Eversource Energy's return on equity of 12.07% beat Southern's return on equity.
Summary
Southern beats Eversource Energy 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 ES 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 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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