UGI vs. NFG, MDU, IDA, SWX, POR, BIPC, AQN, ENIC, NJR, and ELP
Should you be buying UGI stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of UGI include National Fuel Gas (NFG), MDU Resources Group (MDU), IDACORP (IDA), Southwest Gas (SWX), Portland General Electric (POR), Brookfield Infrastructure (BIPC), Algonquin Power & Utilities (AQN), Enel Chile (ENIC), New Jersey Resources (NJR), and Companhia Paranaense de Energia - COPEL (ELP). These companies are all part of the "utilities" sector.
National Fuel Gas (NYSE:NFG) and UGI (NYSE:UGI) are both mid-cap utilities companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, analyst recommendations, media sentiment, risk, earnings, valuation, institutional ownership, community ranking and dividends.
74.0% of National Fuel Gas shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 82.3% of UGI shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.6% of National Fuel Gas shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.4% of UGI shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
National Fuel Gas has higher earnings, but lower revenue than UGI. UGI is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than National Fuel Gas, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
National Fuel Gas currently has a consensus price target of $62.00, indicating a potential upside of 9.52%. UGI has a consensus price target of $27.00, indicating a potential upside of 9.00%. Given UGI's stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe National Fuel Gas is more favorable than UGI.
National Fuel Gas has a beta of 0.63, meaning that its stock price is 37% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, UGI has a beta of 1.13, meaning that its stock price is 13% more volatile than the S&P 500.
In the previous week, UGI had 10 more articles in the media than National Fuel Gas. MarketBeat recorded 13 mentions for UGI and 3 mentions for National Fuel Gas. UGI's average media sentiment score of 1.74 beat National Fuel Gas' score of 0.60 indicating that National Fuel Gas is being referred to more favorably in the media.
National Fuel Gas has a net margin of 23.84% compared to National Fuel Gas' net margin of -0.89%. National Fuel Gas' return on equity of 15.78% beat UGI's return on equity.
National Fuel Gas received 226 more outperform votes than UGI when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 65.83% of users gave National Fuel Gas an outperform vote while only 53.77% of users gave UGI an outperform vote.
National Fuel Gas pays an annual dividend of $1.98 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.5%. UGI pays an annual dividend of $1.50 per share and has a dividend yield of 6.1%. National Fuel Gas pays out 39.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. UGI pays out -365.8% 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. National Fuel Gas has raised its dividend for 54 consecutive years and UGI has raised its dividend for 36 consecutive years. UGI is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
Summary
National Fuel Gas beats UGI on 14 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding UGI 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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