SR vs. NFG, UGP, NFE, NJR, OGS, EE, NWN, SLNG, CETY, and LNG
Should you be buying Spire stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Spire include National Fuel Gas (NFG), Ultrapar Participações (UGP), New Fortress Energy (NFE), New Jersey Resources (NJR), ONE Gas (OGS), Excelerate Energy (EE), Northwest Natural (NWN), Stabilis Solutions (SLNG), Clean Energy Technologies (CETY), and Cheniere Energy (LNG). These companies are all part of the "natural gas distribution" industry.
Spire (NYSE:SR) and National Fuel Gas (NYSE:NFG) are both mid-cap utilities companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, dividends, risk, community ranking, profitability, analyst recommendations, media sentiment, earnings and institutional ownership.
Spire presently has a consensus target price of $62.17, indicating a potential upside of 3.82%. National Fuel Gas has a consensus target price of $68.00, indicating a potential upside of 20.80%. Given National Fuel Gas' stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe National Fuel Gas is more favorable than Spire.
National Fuel Gas has a net margin of 23.84% compared to Spire's net margin of 9.05%. National Fuel Gas' return on equity of 15.06% beat Spire's return on equity.
In the previous week, Spire had 1 more articles in the media than National Fuel Gas. MarketBeat recorded 4 mentions for Spire and 3 mentions for National Fuel Gas. National Fuel Gas' average media sentiment score of 1.59 beat Spire's score of 1.00 indicating that National Fuel Gas is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
National Fuel Gas has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Spire. National Fuel Gas is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Spire, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Spire pays an annual dividend of $3.02 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.0%. National Fuel Gas pays an annual dividend of $1.98 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.5%. Spire pays out 76.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. National Fuel Gas pays out 39.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend.
87.4% of Spire shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 74.0% of National Fuel Gas shares are held by institutional investors. 2.9% of Spire shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.6% of National Fuel Gas shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
Spire has a beta of 0.51, suggesting that its stock price is 49% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, National Fuel Gas has a beta of 0.62, suggesting that its stock price is 38% less volatile than the S&P 500.
National Fuel Gas received 42 more outperform votes than Spire when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 65.83% of users gave National Fuel Gas an outperform vote while only 59.04% of users gave Spire an outperform vote.
Summary
National Fuel Gas beats Spire on 13 of the 19 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding SR 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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