FTS vs. CNP, PPL, ES, EBR, FE, DTE, ETR, NRG, AGR, and EIX
Should you be buying Fortis stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Fortis include CenterPoint Energy (CNP), PPL (PPL), Eversource Energy (ES), Centrais Elétricas Brasileiras S.A. - Eletrobrás (EBR), FirstEnergy (FE), DTE Energy (DTE), Entergy (ETR), NRG Energy (NRG), Avangrid (AGR), and Edison International (EIX). These companies are all part of the "electric services" industry.
Fortis (NYSE:FTS) and CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) are both large-cap utilities companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their risk, valuation, dividends, analyst recommendations, profitability, media sentiment, institutional ownership, community ranking and earnings.
Fortis currently has a consensus price target of $55.13, indicating a potential upside of 35.21%. CenterPoint Energy has a consensus price target of $30.18, indicating a potential upside of 0.34%. Given Fortis' higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Fortis is more favorable than CenterPoint Energy.
In the previous week, CenterPoint Energy had 3 more articles in the media than Fortis. MarketBeat recorded 7 mentions for CenterPoint Energy and 4 mentions for Fortis. CenterPoint Energy's average media sentiment score of 0.76 beat Fortis' score of 0.35 indicating that CenterPoint Energy is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
57.8% of Fortis shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 91.8% of CenterPoint Energy shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.2% of CenterPoint Energy shares are owned by 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.
CenterPoint Energy received 170 more outperform votes than Fortis when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 56.20% of users gave CenterPoint Energy an outperform vote while only 53.55% of users gave Fortis an outperform vote.
Fortis has a beta of 0.43, suggesting that its stock price is 57% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, CenterPoint Energy has a beta of 0.91, suggesting that its stock price is 9% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Fortis has higher earnings, but lower revenue than CenterPoint Energy. Fortis is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than CenterPoint Energy, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Fortis has a net margin of 13.66% compared to CenterPoint Energy's net margin of 11.03%. CenterPoint Energy's return on equity of 10.57% beat Fortis' return on equity.
Fortis pays an annual dividend of $1.71 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.2%. CenterPoint Energy pays an annual dividend of $0.80 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.7%. Fortis pays out 73.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. CenterPoint Energy pays out 56.3% 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.
Summary
CenterPoint Energy beats Fortis on 14 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding FTS 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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