NEE vs. SO, DUK, EIX, ETR, FE, PPL, ES, PNW, OGE, and IDA
Should you be buying NextEra Energy stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of NextEra Energy include Southern (SO), Duke Energy (DUK), Edison International (EIX), Entergy (ETR), FirstEnergy (FE), PPL (PPL), Eversource Energy (ES), Pinnacle West Capital (PNW), OGE Energy (OGE), and IDACORP (IDA). These companies are all part of the "electric utilities" industry.
NextEra Energy (NYSE:NEE) and Southern (NYSE:SO) are both large-cap utilities companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, community ranking, media sentiment, valuation, dividends, profitability, risk and analyst recommendations.
NextEra Energy received 231 more outperform votes than Southern when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 72.29% of users gave NextEra Energy an outperform vote while only 49.95% of users gave Southern an outperform vote.
78.7% of NextEra Energy shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 64.1% of Southern shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.2% of NextEra Energy shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.2% of Southern shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
NextEra Energy presently has a consensus target price of $72.93, suggesting a potential downside of 8.86%. Southern has a consensus target price of $76.60, suggesting a potential downside of 4.44%. Given Southern's higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Southern is more favorable than NextEra Energy.
NextEra Energy has higher revenue and earnings than Southern. Southern is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than NextEra Energy, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
NextEra Energy pays an annual dividend of $2.06 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.6%. Southern pays an annual dividend of $2.88 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.6%. NextEra Energy pays out 56.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Southern pays out 74.4% 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.
NextEra Energy has a net margin of 27.62% compared to Southern's net margin of 16.74%. Southern's return on equity of 12.07% beat NextEra Energy's return on equity.
NextEra Energy has a beta of 0.5, meaning that its stock price is 50% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Southern has a beta of 0.48, meaning that its stock price is 52% less volatile than the S&P 500.
In the previous week, NextEra Energy had 11 more articles in the media than Southern. MarketBeat recorded 25 mentions for NextEra Energy and 14 mentions for Southern. Southern's average media sentiment score of 1.10 beat NextEra Energy's score of 1.07 indicating that Southern is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Summary
NextEra Energy beats Southern on 14 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding NEE 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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