WTRG vs. AWK, SBS, CWT, AWR, SJW, MSEX, YORW, CWCO, ARTNA, and GWRS
Should you be buying Essential Utilities stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Essential Utilities include American Water Works (AWK), Companhia de Saneamento Básico do Estado de São Paulo - SABESP (SBS), California Water Service Group (CWT), American States Water (AWR), SJW Group (SJW), Middlesex Water (MSEX), York Water (YORW), Consolidated Water (CWCO), Artesian Resources (ARTNA), and Global Water Resources (GWRS). These companies are all part of the "water supply" industry.
Essential Utilities (NYSE:WTRG) and American Water Works (NYSE:AWK) are both large-cap utilities companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, risk, profitability, dividends, community ranking, earnings, valuation, institutional ownership and media sentiment.
Essential Utilities has a beta of 0.8, meaning that its stock price is 20% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, American Water Works has a beta of 0.62, meaning that its stock price is 38% less volatile than the S&P 500.
74.8% of Essential Utilities shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 86.6% of American Water Works shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.2% of Essential Utilities shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.1% of American Water Works shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
Essential Utilities pays an annual dividend of $1.23 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.3%. American Water Works pays an annual dividend of $3.06 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.3%. Essential Utilities pays out 58.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. American Water Works pays out 62.1% 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. Essential Utilities is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
American Water Works has higher revenue and earnings than Essential Utilities. Essential Utilities is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than American Water Works, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
In the previous week, Essential Utilities and Essential Utilities both had 14 articles in the media. American Water Works' average media sentiment score of 0.83 beat Essential Utilities' score of 0.28 indicating that American Water Works is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Essential Utilities currently has a consensus price target of $43.00, suggesting a potential upside of 13.97%. American Water Works has a consensus price target of $141.33, suggesting a potential upside of 8.08%. Given Essential Utilities' stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts plainly believe Essential Utilities is more favorable than American Water Works.
American Water Works received 469 more outperform votes than Essential Utilities when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 64.78% of users gave American Water Works an outperform vote while only 30.14% of users gave Essential Utilities an outperform vote.
Essential Utilities has a net margin of 29.52% compared to American Water Works' net margin of 22.27%. American Water Works' return on equity of 9.74% beat Essential Utilities' return on equity.
Summary
American Water Works beats Essential Utilities on 11 of the 19 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding WTRG and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
Skip ChartThis 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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