UTL vs. MGEE, ARRY, HE, NEE, SO, DUK, EIX, ETR, FE, and PPL
Should you be buying Unitil stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Unitil include MGE Energy (MGEE), Array Technologies (ARRY), Hawaiian Electric Industries (HE), NextEra Energy (NEE), Southern (SO), Duke Energy (DUK), Edison International (EIX), Entergy (ETR), FirstEnergy (FE), and PPL (PPL). These companies are all part of the "electric utilities" industry.
MGE Energy (NASDAQ:MGEE) and Unitil (NYSE:UTL) are both utilities companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, community ranking, media sentiment, risk, earnings, dividends, valuation, profitability and analyst recommendations.
MGE Energy has a beta of 0.72, indicating that its stock price is 28% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Unitil has a beta of 0.58, indicating that its stock price is 42% less volatile than the S&P 500.
In the previous week, MGE Energy had 7 more articles in the media than Unitil. MarketBeat recorded 7 mentions for MGE Energy and 0 mentions for Unitil. Unitil's average media sentiment score of 1.12 beat MGE Energy's score of 0.00 indicating that MGE Energy is being referred to more favorably in the media.
MGE Energy presently has a consensus price target of $68.00, indicating a potential downside of 15.14%. Unitil has a consensus price target of $51.00, indicating a potential downside of 4.66%. Given MGE Energy's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Unitil is more favorable than MGE Energy.
52.6% of MGE Energy shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 76.8% of Unitil shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.2% of MGE Energy shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.9% of Unitil shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
Unitil received 122 more outperform votes than MGE Energy when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 61.79% of users gave Unitil an outperform vote while only 55.38% of users gave MGE Energy an outperform vote.
MGE Energy has a net margin of 18.12% compared to MGE Energy's net margin of 9.37%. Unitil's return on equity of 10.60% beat MGE Energy's return on equity.
MGE Energy has higher revenue and earnings than Unitil. Unitil is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than MGE Energy, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
MGE Energy pays an annual dividend of $1.71 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.1%. Unitil pays an annual dividend of $1.70 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.2%. MGE Energy pays out 51.5% 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. MGE Energy has raised its dividend for 48 consecutive years and Unitil has raised its dividend for 10 consecutive years.
Summary
MGE Energy beats Unitil 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 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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