WEC vs. AEE, ED, PEG, PCG, NI, XEL, EXC, LNT, EVRG, and DUK
Should you be buying WEC Energy Group stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of WEC Energy Group include Ameren (AEE), Consolidated Edison (ED), Public Service Enterprise Group (PEG), PG&E (PCG), NiSource (NI), Xcel Energy (XEL), Exelon (EXC), Alliant Energy (LNT), Evergy (EVRG), and Duke Energy (DUK). These companies are all part of the "electric & other services combined" industry.
Ameren (NYSE:AEE) and WEC Energy Group (NYSE:WEC) are both large-cap utilities companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, profitability, institutional ownership, earnings, media sentiment, valuation, community ranking, risk and analyst recommendations.
Ameren has a beta of 0.44, suggesting that its share price is 56% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, WEC Energy Group has a beta of 0.4, suggesting that its share price is 60% less volatile than the S&P 500.
In the previous week, Ameren had 2 more articles in the media than WEC Energy Group. MarketBeat recorded 19 mentions for Ameren and 17 mentions for WEC Energy Group. Ameren's average media sentiment score of 0.83 beat WEC Energy Group's score of 0.39 indicating that WEC Energy Group is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
79.1% of Ameren shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 77.2% of WEC Energy Group shares are held by institutional investors. 0.4% of Ameren shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.3% of WEC Energy Group shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Ameren currently has a consensus target price of $79.40, indicating a potential upside of 7.04%. WEC Energy Group has a consensus target price of $86.64, indicating a potential upside of 5.67%. Given WEC Energy Group's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe Ameren is more favorable than WEC Energy Group.
Ameren pays an annual dividend of $2.68 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.6%. WEC Energy Group pays an annual dividend of $3.34 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.1%. Ameren pays out 61.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. WEC Energy Group pays out 79.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Ameren has raised its dividend for 11 consecutive years and WEC Energy Group has raised its dividend for 22 consecutive years. WEC Energy Group is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
WEC Energy Group received 74 more outperform votes than Ameren when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 52.57% of users gave WEC Energy Group an outperform vote while only 51.26% of users gave Ameren an outperform vote.
WEC Energy Group has higher revenue and earnings than Ameren. Ameren is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than WEC Energy Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Ameren has a net margin of 15.36% compared to Ameren's net margin of 14.98%. Ameren's return on equity of 12.17% beat WEC Energy Group's return on equity.
Summary
WEC Energy Group beats Ameren 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 WEC 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.
WEC Energy Group Competitors List
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