UTL vs. GNE, AVA, NWE, EDN, MSEX, IDT, SHEN, HE, CLNE, and CNSL
Should you be buying Unitil stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Unitil include Genie Energy (GNE), Avista (AVA), NorthWestern Energy Group (NWE), Empresa Distribuidora y Comercializadora Norte Sociedad Anónima (EDN), Middlesex Water (MSEX), IDT (IDT), Shenandoah Telecommunications (SHEN), Hawaiian Electric Industries (HE), Clean Energy Fuels (CLNE), and Consolidated Communications (CNSL). These companies are all part of the "utilities" sector.
Unitil (NYSE:UTL) and Genie Energy (NYSE:GNE) are both small-cap utilities companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their community ranking, earnings, dividends, institutional ownership, profitability, valuation, analyst recommendations, media sentiment and risk.
Unitil currently has a consensus target price of $51.00, suggesting a potential downside of 3.04%. Given Unitil's higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Unitil is more favorable than Genie Energy.
In the previous week, Unitil had 3 more articles in the media than Genie Energy. MarketBeat recorded 5 mentions for Unitil and 2 mentions for Genie Energy. Genie Energy's average media sentiment score of 1.45 beat Unitil's score of 0.57 indicating that Genie Energy is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Unitil pays an annual dividend of $1.70 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.2%. Genie Energy pays an annual dividend of $0.30 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.9%. Unitil pays out 60.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Genie Energy pays out 40.5% 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.
Unitil has higher revenue and earnings than Genie Energy. Unitil is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Genie Energy, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Unitil received 153 more outperform votes than Genie Energy when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 61.79% of users gave Unitil an outperform vote while only 57.10% of users gave Genie Energy an outperform vote.
Unitil has a beta of 0.58, meaning that its stock price is 42% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Genie Energy has a beta of 0.17, meaning that its stock price is 83% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Unitil has a net margin of 8.11% compared to Genie Energy's net margin of 4.56%. Genie Energy's return on equity of 25.39% beat Unitil's return on equity.
76.8% of Unitil shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 49.2% of Genie Energy shares are held by institutional investors. 1.9% of Unitil shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 16.5% of Genie Energy shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
Summary
Unitil beats Genie Energy on 12 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding UTL 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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