UTL vs. ALE, PNM, MGEE, HE, ARRY, NEE, SO, DUK, EIX, and ETR
Should you be buying Unitil stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Unitil include ALLETE (ALE), PNM Resources (PNM), MGE Energy (MGEE), Hawaiian Electric Industries (HE), Array Technologies (ARRY), NextEra Energy (NEE), Southern (SO), Duke Energy (DUK), Edison International (EIX), and Entergy (ETR). These companies are all part of the "electric utilities" industry.
ALLETE (NYSE:ALE) and Unitil (NYSE:UTL) are both utilities companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, risk, profitability, earnings, community ranking, institutional ownership, valuation, media sentiment and dividends.
ALLETE has a net margin of 13.94% compared to ALLETE's net margin of 9.37%. ALLETE's return on equity of 9.84% beat Unitil's return on equity.
ALLETE has a beta of 0.8, indicating that its share price is 20% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Unitil has a beta of 0.6, indicating that its share price is 40% less volatile than the S&P 500.
In the previous week, ALLETE had 4 more articles in the media than Unitil. MarketBeat recorded 8 mentions for ALLETE and 4 mentions for Unitil. Unitil's average media sentiment score of 0.07 beat ALLETE's score of -0.18 indicating that ALLETE is being referred to more favorably in the media.
ALLETE has higher revenue and earnings than Unitil. ALLETE is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Unitil, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Unitil received 52 more outperform votes than ALLETE when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 61.79% of users gave Unitil an outperform vote while only 51.35% of users gave ALLETE an outperform vote.
ALLETE presently has a consensus target price of $62.00, suggesting a potential downside of 3.97%. Unitil has a consensus target price of $51.00, suggesting a potential downside of 15.60%. Given Unitil's higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe ALLETE is more favorable than Unitil.
76.6% of ALLETE shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 76.8% of Unitil shares are held by institutional investors. 0.2% of ALLETE shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.9% of Unitil shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
ALLETE pays an annual dividend of $2.82 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.4%. Unitil pays an annual dividend of $1.70 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.8%. ALLETE pays out 67.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Unitil pays out 56.7% 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. ALLETE has increased its dividend for 14 consecutive years. ALLETE is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
Summary
ALLETE beats Unitil on 12 of the 19 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding UTL 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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