SO vs. EIX, ETR, FE, NEE, AEP, D, VST, DTE, DUK, and NGG
Should you be buying Southern stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Southern include Edison International (EIX), Entergy (ETR), FirstEnergy (FE), NextEra Energy (NEE), American Electric Power (AEP), Dominion Energy (D), Vistra (VST), DTE Energy (DTE), Duke Energy (DUK), and National Grid (NGG). These companies are all part of the "utilities" sector.
Edison International (NYSE:EIX) and Southern (NYSE:SO) are both large-cap utilities companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, community ranking, institutional ownership, media sentiment, dividends, risk, analyst recommendations, earnings and valuation.
Edison International received 219 more outperform votes than Southern when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 63.25% of users gave Edison International an outperform vote while only 50.05% of users gave Southern an outperform vote.
Southern has higher revenue and earnings than Edison International. Southern is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Edison International, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Edison International currently has a consensus price target of $76.00, indicating a potential downside of 0.39%. Southern has a consensus price target of $75.73, indicating a potential downside of 4.79%. Given Southern's higher possible upside, equities analysts plainly believe Edison International is more favorable than Southern.
In the previous week, Southern had 4 more articles in the media than Edison International. MarketBeat recorded 28 mentions for Southern and 24 mentions for Edison International. Edison International's average media sentiment score of 0.95 beat Southern's score of 0.89 indicating that Southern is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
89.0% of Edison International shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 64.1% of Southern shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.0% of Edison International shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.2% of Southern shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Southern has a net margin of 16.74% compared to Southern's net margin of 6.14%. Southern's return on equity of 12.48% beat Edison International's return on equity.
Edison International has a beta of 0.95, suggesting that its share price is 5% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Southern has a beta of 0.48, suggesting that its share price is 52% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Edison International pays an annual dividend of $3.12 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.1%. Southern pays an annual dividend of $2.80 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.5%. Edison International pays out 136.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Southern pays out 72.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Edison International has raised its dividend for 21 consecutive years and Southern has raised its dividend for 24 consecutive years.
Summary
Southern beats Edison International on 13 of the 22 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding SO 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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