PPL vs. SO, DUK, ETR, FE, ES, EIX, PNW, OGE, IDA, and POR
Should you be buying PPL stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of PPL include Southern (SO), Duke Energy (DUK), Entergy (ETR), FirstEnergy (FE), Eversource Energy (ES), Edison International (EIX), Pinnacle West Capital (PNW), OGE Energy (OGE), IDACORP (IDA), and Portland General Electric (POR). These companies are all part of the "electric utilities" industry.
PPL vs.
Southern (NYSE:SO) and PPL (NYSE:PPL) are both large-cap utilities companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, earnings, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, profitability, dividends, media sentiment, valuation and community ranking.
Southern currently has a consensus target price of $92.64, indicating a potential upside of 3.78%. PPL has a consensus target price of $36.90, indicating a potential upside of 9.45%. Given PPL's stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe PPL is more favorable than Southern.
In the previous week, Southern had 28 more articles in the media than PPL. MarketBeat recorded 29 mentions for Southern and 1 mentions for PPL. Southern's average media sentiment score of 1.27 beat PPL's score of 0.00 indicating that Southern is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Southern has higher revenue and earnings than PPL. Southern is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than PPL, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Southern has a net margin of 16.47% compared to PPL's net margin of 10.49%. Southern's return on equity of 12.23% beat PPL's return on equity.
64.1% of Southern shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 77.0% of PPL shares are held by institutional investors. 0.2% of Southern shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.3% of PPL shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Southern pays an annual dividend of $2.96 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.3%. PPL pays an annual dividend of $1.09 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.2%. Southern pays out 70.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. PPL pays out 80.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Southern has increased its dividend for 25 consecutive years and PPL has increased its dividend for 3 consecutive years. Southern is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
Southern has a beta of 0.38, indicating that its share price is 62% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, PPL has a beta of 0.65, indicating that its share price is 35% less volatile than the S&P 500.
PPL received 54 more outperform votes than Southern when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 60.68% of users gave PPL an outperform vote while only 49.31% of users gave Southern an outperform vote.
Summary
Southern beats PPL on 11 of the 21 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 {thisCompany.Symbol} 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.
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This page (NYSE:PPL) was last updated on 6/11/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff
