MDU vs. UGI, NFG, IDA, SWX, POR, AQN, BIPC, NJR, ELP, and ENIC
Should you be buying MDU Resources Group stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of MDU Resources Group include UGI (UGI), National Fuel Gas (NFG), IDACORP (IDA), Southwest Gas (SWX), Portland General Electric (POR), Algonquin Power & Utilities (AQN), Brookfield Infrastructure (BIPC), New Jersey Resources (NJR), Companhia Paranaense de Energia - COPEL (ELP), and Enel Chile (ENIC). These companies are all part of the "utilities" sector.
UGI (NYSE:UGI) and MDU Resources Group (NYSE:MDU) are both mid-cap utilities companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, community ranking, valuation, profitability, dividends, media sentiment, risk and earnings.
UGI has a beta of 1.13, suggesting that its share price is 13% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, MDU Resources Group has a beta of 0.78, suggesting that its share price is 22% less volatile than the S&P 500.
UGI presently has a consensus target price of $27.00, suggesting a potential upside of 8.39%. Given MDU Resources Group's higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe UGI is more favorable than MDU Resources Group.
MDU Resources Group has lower revenue, but higher earnings than UGI. UGI is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than MDU Resources Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
In the previous week, UGI had 4 more articles in the media than MDU Resources Group. MarketBeat recorded 9 mentions for UGI and 5 mentions for MDU Resources Group. UGI's average media sentiment score of 0.77 beat MDU Resources Group's score of 0.49 indicating that MDU Resources Group is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
UGI pays an annual dividend of $1.50 per share and has a dividend yield of 6.0%. MDU Resources Group pays an annual dividend of $0.50 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.0%. UGI pays out -365.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. MDU Resources Group pays out 21.4% 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. UGI has increased its dividend for 36 consecutive years. UGI is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
82.3% of UGI shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 71.4% of MDU Resources Group shares are held by institutional investors. 0.4% of UGI shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.0% of MDU Resources Group shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
MDU Resources Group received 48 more outperform votes than UGI when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 61.70% of users gave MDU Resources Group an outperform vote while only 53.77% of users gave UGI an outperform vote.
MDU Resources Group has a net margin of 10.74% compared to MDU Resources Group's net margin of -0.89%. MDU Resources Group's return on equity of 15.78% beat UGI's return on equity.
Summary
MDU Resources Group beats UGI on 11 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding MDU 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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