NWE vs. AVA, ALE, UTL, EVRG, PRMW, PNM, MGEE, SR, MYRG, and CWT
Should you be buying NorthWestern Energy Group stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of NorthWestern Energy Group include Avista (AVA), ALLETE (ALE), Unitil (UTL), Evergy (EVRG), Primo Water (PRMW), PNM Resources (PNM), MGE Energy (MGEE), Spire (SR), MYR Group (MYRG), and California Water Service Group (CWT). These companies are all part of the "utilities" sector.
Avista (NYSE:AVA) and NorthWestern Energy Group (NYSE:NWE) are both mid-cap utilities companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, profitability, media sentiment, earnings, institutional ownership, community ranking, risk, analyst recommendations and valuation.
Avista pays an annual dividend of $1.90 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.2%. NorthWestern Energy Group pays an annual dividend of $2.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.1%. Avista pays out 85.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. NorthWestern Energy Group pays out 80.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Avista has raised its dividend for 22 consecutive years and NorthWestern Energy Group has raised its dividend for 19 consecutive years. Avista is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
85.2% of Avista shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 96.1% of NorthWestern Energy Group shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.0% of Avista shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.9% of NorthWestern Energy Group shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Avista has a beta of 0.48, suggesting that its share price is 52% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, NorthWestern Energy Group has a beta of 0.43, suggesting that its share price is 57% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Avista received 233 more outperform votes than NorthWestern Energy Group when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 48.06% of users gave Avista an outperform vote while only 13.33% of users gave NorthWestern Energy Group an outperform vote.
Avista presently has a consensus target price of $33.50, indicating a potential downside of 8.94%. NorthWestern Energy Group has a consensus target price of $51.71, indicating a potential upside of 1.38%. Given Avista's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe NorthWestern Energy Group is more favorable than Avista.
NorthWestern Energy Group has a net margin of 13.62% compared to NorthWestern Energy Group's net margin of 9.77%. Avista's return on equity of 7.31% beat NorthWestern Energy Group's return on equity.
In the previous week, Avista had 3 more articles in the media than NorthWestern Energy Group. MarketBeat recorded 23 mentions for Avista and 20 mentions for NorthWestern Energy Group. Avista's average media sentiment score of 0.51 beat NorthWestern Energy Group's score of 0.04 indicating that NorthWestern Energy Group is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
NorthWestern Energy Group has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Avista. NorthWestern Energy Group is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Avista, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Summary
NorthWestern Energy Group beats Avista on 12 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding NWE 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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