UGI vs. ATO, SWX, NFG, NJR, CPK, NWN, OKE, MNTK, OPAL, and CLNE
Should you be buying UGI stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of UGI include Atmos Energy (ATO), Southwest Gas (SWX), National Fuel Gas (NFG), New Jersey Resources (NJR), Chesapeake Utilities (CPK), Northwest Natural (NWN), ONEOK (OKE), Montauk Renewables (MNTK), OPAL Fuels (OPAL), and Clean Energy Fuels (CLNE).
UGI (NYSE:UGI) and Atmos Energy (NYSE:ATO) are both utilities companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their risk, earnings, valuation, media sentiment, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, community ranking, profitability and dividends.
UGI currently has a consensus target price of $27.00, indicating a potential upside of 9.53%. Atmos Energy has a consensus target price of $128.67, indicating a potential upside of 1.95%. Given UGI's higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe UGI is more favorable than Atmos Energy.
Atmos Energy has lower revenue, but higher earnings than UGI. UGI is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Atmos Energy, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
UGI has a beta of 1.13, suggesting that its share price is 13% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Atmos Energy has a beta of 0.67, suggesting that its share price is 33% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Atmos Energy has a net margin of 24.65% compared to UGI's net margin of -0.89%. UGI's return on equity of 15.78% beat Atmos Energy's return on equity.
In the previous week, Atmos Energy had 8 more articles in the media than UGI. MarketBeat recorded 13 mentions for Atmos Energy and 5 mentions for UGI. Atmos Energy's average media sentiment score of 0.95 beat UGI's score of 0.79 indicating that Atmos Energy is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Atmos Energy received 250 more outperform votes than UGI when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 64.13% of users gave Atmos Energy an outperform vote while only 53.75% of users gave UGI an outperform vote.
82.3% of UGI shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 90.2% of Atmos Energy shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.4% of UGI shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.5% of Atmos Energy shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
UGI pays an annual dividend of $1.50 per share and has a dividend yield of 6.1%. Atmos Energy pays an annual dividend of $3.22 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.6%. UGI pays out -365.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Atmos Energy pays out 48.3% 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. UGI is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
Summary
Atmos Energy beats UGI on 13 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding UGI 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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