AES vs. LNT, NRG, CMS, CNP, AEE, ORA, GNE, MGEE, PCG, and SRE
Should you be buying AES stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of AES include Alliant Energy (LNT), NRG Energy (NRG), CMS Energy (CMS), CenterPoint Energy (CNP), Ameren (AEE), Ormat Technologies (ORA), Genie Energy (GNE), MGE Energy (MGEE), PG&E (PCG), and Sempra (SRE).
Alliant Energy (NASDAQ:LNT) and AES (NYSE:AES) are both large-cap utilities companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, valuation, profitability, risk, media sentiment, community ranking, dividends and earnings.
Alliant Energy has higher earnings, but lower revenue than AES. Alliant Energy is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than AES, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Alliant Energy has a net margin of 17.53% compared to Alliant Energy's net margin of 4.40%. Alliant Energy's return on equity of 36.23% beat AES's return on equity.
79.9% of Alliant Energy shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 93.1% of AES shares are held by institutional investors. 0.3% of Alliant Energy shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.6% of AES shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
AES received 362 more outperform votes than Alliant Energy when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 61.60% of users gave AES an outperform vote while only 34.33% of users gave Alliant Energy an outperform vote.
Alliant Energy has a beta of 0.54, indicating that its stock price is 46% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, AES has a beta of 1.08, indicating that its stock price is 8% more volatile than the S&P 500.
In the previous week, AES had 10 more articles in the media than Alliant Energy. MarketBeat recorded 25 mentions for AES and 15 mentions for Alliant Energy. AES's average media sentiment score of 0.91 beat Alliant Energy's score of 0.33 indicating that Alliant Energy is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Alliant Energy pays an annual dividend of $1.92 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.7%. AES pays an annual dividend of $0.69 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.2%. Alliant Energy pays out 69.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. AES pays out 95.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Alliant Energy has increased its dividend for 21 consecutive years and AES has increased its dividend for 11 consecutive years. Alliant Energy is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
Alliant Energy presently has a consensus price target of $51.38, indicating a potential downside of 0.22%. AES has a consensus price target of $22.50, indicating a potential upside of 4.21%. Given Alliant Energy's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe AES is more favorable than Alliant Energy.
Summary
AES beats Alliant Energy on 13 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding AES 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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