SO vs. EIX, NEE, ETR, FE, ES, PPL, AEP, D, VST, and DTE
Should you be buying Southern stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Southern include Edison International (EIX), NextEra Energy (NEE), Entergy (ETR), FirstEnergy (FE), Eversource Energy (ES), PPL (PPL), American Electric Power (AEP), Dominion Energy (D), Vistra (VST), and DTE Energy (DTE). These companies are all part of the "electric services" industry.
Southern (NYSE:SO) and Edison International (NYSE:EIX) are both large-cap utilities companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their community ranking, media sentiment, earnings, analyst recommendations, dividends, valuation, institutional ownership, profitability and risk.
Southern has higher revenue and earnings than Edison International. Southern is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Edison International, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Southern presently has a consensus price target of $74.36, suggesting a potential upside of 1.57%. Edison International has a consensus price target of $73.60, suggesting a potential upside of 4.93%. Given Edison International's higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Edison International is more favorable than Southern.
Edison International received 218 more outperform votes than Southern when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 63.24% of users gave Edison International an outperform vote while only 50.05% of users gave Southern an outperform vote.
Southern has a beta of 0.49, meaning that its share price is 51% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Edison International has a beta of 0.96, meaning that its share price is 4% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Southern pays an annual dividend of $2.88 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.9%. Edison International pays an annual dividend of $3.12 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.4%. Southern pays out 79.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Edison International pays out 100.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future.
In the previous week, Southern had 11 more articles in the media than Edison International. MarketBeat recorded 25 mentions for Southern and 14 mentions for Edison International. Edison International's average media sentiment score of 0.58 beat Southern's score of 0.41 indicating that Edison International is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Southern has a net margin of 15.79% compared to Edison International's net margin of 8.35%. Edison International's return on equity of 12.63% beat Southern's return on equity.
64.1% of Southern shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 88.9% of Edison International shares are held by institutional investors. 0.2% of Southern shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.0% of Edison International shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
Summary
Southern beats Edison International on 11 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding SO 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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