ALE vs. NWE, AVA, EVRG, NI, LNT, OGS, SR, OTTR, PNM, and BKH
Should you be buying ALLETE stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of ALLETE include NorthWestern Energy Group (NWE), Avista (AVA), Evergy (EVRG), NiSource (NI), Alliant Energy (LNT), ONE Gas (OGS), Spire (SR), Otter Tail (OTTR), PNM Resources (PNM), and Black Hills (BKH). These companies are all part of the "utilities" sector.
NorthWestern Energy Group (NYSE:NWE) and ALLETE (NYSE:ALE) are both mid-cap utilities companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, community ranking, profitability, earnings, dividends, media sentiment, valuation, risk and institutional ownership.
NorthWestern Energy Group has a beta of 0.43, indicating that its share price is 57% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, ALLETE has a beta of 0.75, indicating that its share price is 25% less volatile than the S&P 500.
NorthWestern Energy Group presently has a consensus target price of $51.71, indicating a potential upside of 0.98%. ALLETE has a consensus target price of $58.60, indicating a potential downside of 6.98%. Given ALLETE's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities analysts plainly believe NorthWestern Energy Group is more favorable than ALLETE.
NorthWestern Energy Group pays an annual dividend of $2.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.1%. ALLETE pays an annual dividend of $2.82 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.5%. 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. ALLETE pays out 65.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. NorthWestern Energy Group has increased its dividend for 20 consecutive years and ALLETE has increased its dividend for 14 consecutive years. NorthWestern Energy Group is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
NorthWestern Energy Group has a net margin of 13.62% compared to NorthWestern Energy Group's net margin of 13.15%.
ALLETE received 284 more outperform votes than NorthWestern Energy Group when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 52.38% of users gave ALLETE an outperform vote while only 13.33% of users gave NorthWestern Energy Group an outperform vote.
96.1% of NorthWestern Energy Group shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 76.6% of ALLETE shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.6% of NorthWestern Energy Group shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.2% of ALLETE shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
In the previous week, ALLETE had 17 more articles in the media than NorthWestern Energy Group. MarketBeat recorded 26 mentions for ALLETE and 9 mentions for NorthWestern Energy Group. ALLETE's average media sentiment score of 0.92 beat NorthWestern Energy Group's score of 0.35 indicating that NorthWestern Energy Group is being referred to more favorably in the media.
ALLETE has higher revenue and earnings than NorthWestern Energy Group. ALLETE is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than NorthWestern Energy Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Summary
NorthWestern Energy Group beats ALLETE 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 ALE 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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