NRG Energy (NRG) Competitors

AES (NYSE:AES) and NRG Energy (NYSE:NRG) are both utilities companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, earnings, valuation, risk, institutional ownership, profitability, community ranking, media sentiment and dividends.

Does the MarketBeat Community believe in AES or NRG?

NRG Energy received 291 more outperform votes than AES when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 65.90% of users gave NRG Energy an outperform vote while only 62.11% of users gave AES an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
AES	Outperform Votes 395 62.11%	Underperform Votes 241 37.89%
NRG Energy	Outperform Votes 686 65.90%	Underperform Votes 355 34.10%

Do analysts recommend AES or NRG?

AES presently has a consensus price target of $19.30, suggesting a potential upside of 48.46%. NRG Energy has a consensus price target of $102.71, suggesting a potential upside of 13.56%. Given AES's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe AES is more favorable than NRG Energy.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
AES	1 Sell rating(s)	2 Hold rating(s)	8 Buy rating(s)	2 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.85
NRG Energy	0 Sell rating(s)	3 Hold rating(s)	4 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.57

Which has more risk and volatility, AES or NRG?

AES has a beta of 1.01, suggesting that its share price is 1% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, NRG Energy has a beta of 1.12, suggesting that its share price is 12% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Which has preferable earnings & valuation, AES or NRG?

AES has higher earnings, but lower revenue than NRG Energy. AES is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than NRG Energy, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Company	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
AES	$12.28B	0.75	$249M	$1.44	9.03
NRG Energy	$28.12B	0.65	-$202M	$3.98	22.73

Is AES or NRG more profitable?

AES has a net margin of 8.34% compared to NRG Energy's net margin of 3.43%. NRG Energy's return on equity of 48.96% beat AES's return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
AES	8.34%	27.30%	3.76%
NRG Energy	3.43%	48.96%	4.73%

Does the media favor AES or NRG?

In the previous week, AES and AES both had 17 articles in the media. NRG Energy's average media sentiment score of 1.23 beat AES's score of 0.47 indicating that NRG Energy is being referred to more favorably in the news media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
AES	5 Very Positive mention(s)	2 Positive mention(s)	6 Neutral mention(s)	1 Negative mention(s)	1 Very Negative mention(s)	Neutral
NRG Energy	8 Very Positive mention(s)	3 Positive mention(s)	2 Neutral mention(s)	1 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive

Is AES or NRG a better dividend stock?

AES pays an annual dividend of $0.70 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.4%. NRG Energy pays an annual dividend of $1.63 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.8%. AES pays out 48.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. NRG Energy pays out 41.0% 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.

Do institutionals & insiders believe in AES or NRG?

93.1% of AES shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 97.7% of NRG Energy shares are held by institutional investors. 0.6% of AES shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.6% of NRG Energy shares are held 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.

Summary

NRG Energy beats AES on 11 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.