CU vs. ACO.X, BIP.UN, AQN, BEPC, BIPC, NPI, CPX, BEP.UN, BLX, and TA
Should you be buying Canadian Utilities stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Canadian Utilities include ATCO (ACO.X), Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (BIP.UN), Algonquin Power & Utilities (AQN), Brookfield Renewable (BEPC), Brookfield Infrastructure (BIPC), Northland Power (NPI), Capital Power (CPX), Brookfield Renewable Partners (BEP.UN), Boralex (BLX), and TransAlta (TA). These companies are all part of the "utilities" sector.
ATCO (TSE:ACO.X) and Canadian Utilities (TSE:CU) are both mid-cap utilities companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, media sentiment, valuation, risk, profitability, analyst recommendations, community ranking, earnings and institutional ownership.
Canadian Utilities received 220 more outperform votes than ATCO when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 59.81% of users gave Canadian Utilities an outperform vote while only 46.46% of users gave ATCO an outperform vote.
ATCO currently has a consensus price target of C$45.00, suggesting a potential upside of 19.78%. Canadian Utilities has a consensus price target of C$35.29, suggesting a potential upside of 14.64%. Given Canadian Utilities' stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts plainly believe ATCO is more favorable than Canadian Utilities.
28.8% of ATCO shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 15.1% of Canadian Utilities shares are held by institutional investors. 0.7% of ATCO shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 38.0% of Canadian Utilities 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.
Canadian Utilities has lower revenue, but higher earnings than ATCO. ATCO is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Canadian Utilities, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Canadian Utilities has a net margin of 18.63% compared to Canadian Utilities' net margin of 9.11%. ATCO's return on equity of 10.08% beat Canadian Utilities' return on equity.
ATCO pays an annual dividend of C$1.96 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.2%. Canadian Utilities pays an annual dividend of C$1.81 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.9%. ATCO pays out 51.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Canadian Utilities pays out 77.7% 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, Canadian Utilities had 6 more articles in the media than ATCO. MarketBeat recorded 7 mentions for Canadian Utilities and 1 mentions for ATCO. ATCO's average media sentiment score of 0.73 beat Canadian Utilities' score of -0.17 indicating that Canadian Utilities is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
ATCO has a beta of 0.68, suggesting that its stock price is 32% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Canadian Utilities has a beta of 0.6, suggesting that its stock price is 40% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Summary
Canadian Utilities beats ATCO on 11 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding CU 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 TSE 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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