UNP vs. NSC, CNI, CP, CSX, UPS, GE, FDX, ODFL, DAL, and RYAAY
Should you be buying Union Pacific stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Union Pacific include Norfolk Southern (NSC), Canadian National Railway (CNI), Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CP), CSX (CSX), United Parcel Service (UPS), General Electric (GE), FedEx (FDX), Old Dominion Freight Line (ODFL), Delta Air Lines (DAL), and Ryanair (RYAAY). These companies are all part of the "transportation" sector.
Norfolk Southern (NYSE:NSC) and Union Pacific (NYSE:UNP) are both large-cap transportation companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, analyst recommendations, community ranking, valuation, profitability, dividends, risk, media sentiment and institutional ownership.
75.1% of Norfolk Southern shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 80.4% of Union Pacific shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.2% of Norfolk Southern shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.3% of Union Pacific shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Union Pacific has higher revenue and earnings than Norfolk Southern. Union Pacific is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Norfolk Southern, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Norfolk Southern pays an annual dividend of $5.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.3%. Union Pacific pays an annual dividend of $5.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.1%. Norfolk Southern pays out 87.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Union Pacific pays out 49.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Norfolk Southern has raised its dividend for 3 consecutive years. Norfolk Southern is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
Norfolk Southern has a beta of 1.3, indicating that its share price is 30% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Union Pacific has a beta of 1.06, indicating that its share price is 6% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Union Pacific received 435 more outperform votes than Norfolk Southern when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 70.21% of users gave Union Pacific an outperform vote while only 57.43% of users gave Norfolk Southern an outperform vote.
Norfolk Southern currently has a consensus price target of $261.78, indicating a potential upside of 13.09%. Union Pacific has a consensus price target of $259.61, indicating a potential upside of 5.98%. Given Union Pacific's higher possible upside, equities analysts clearly believe Norfolk Southern is more favorable than Union Pacific.
Union Pacific has a net margin of 26.52% compared to Union Pacific's net margin of 11.76%. Norfolk Southern's return on equity of 44.34% beat Union Pacific's return on equity.
In the previous week, Union Pacific had 6 more articles in the media than Norfolk Southern. MarketBeat recorded 30 mentions for Union Pacific and 24 mentions for Norfolk Southern. Norfolk Southern's average media sentiment score of 0.90 beat Union Pacific's score of 0.66 indicating that Union Pacific is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Summary
Union Pacific beats Norfolk Southern on 17 of the 22 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding UNP 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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