UTL vs. GNE, AVA, NWE, EDN, SHEN, IDT, MSEX, CLNE, YORW, and HE
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), Shenandoah Telecommunications (SHEN), IDT (IDT), Middlesex Water (MSEX), Clean Energy Fuels (CLNE), York Water (YORW), and Hawaiian Electric Industries (HE). 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 superior stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, valuation, community ranking, profitability, institutional ownership, media sentiment, analyst recommendations, risk and dividends.
Unitil has a net margin of 9.37% compared to Genie Energy's net margin of 2.99%. Genie Energy's return on equity of 24.06% beat Unitil's return on equity.
Unitil pays an annual dividend of $1.70 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.1%. Genie Energy pays an annual dividend of $0.30 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.0%. Unitil pays out 56.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Genie Energy pays out 60.0% 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 is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
76.8% of Unitil shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 49.2% of Genie Energy shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.9% of Unitil shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 16.5% of Genie Energy shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
Unitil currently has a consensus target price of $51.00, suggesting a potential downside of 5.83%. Given Unitil's higher probable upside, equities analysts clearly believe Unitil is more favorable than Genie Energy.
In the previous week, Genie Energy had 3 more articles in the media than Unitil. MarketBeat recorded 4 mentions for Genie Energy and 1 mentions for Unitil. Unitil's average media sentiment score of 1.77 beat Genie Energy's score of 1.68 indicating that Unitil is being referred to more favorably in the media.
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 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 has a beta of 0.58, indicating that its share price is 42% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Genie Energy has a beta of 0.17, indicating that its share price is 83% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Summary
Unitil beats Genie Energy on 13 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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