Contrasting NRG Energy (NRG) and Its Competitors

NRG Energy (NYSE:NRG) is one of 76 publicly-traded companies in the “UTIL – ELEC PWR” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its peers? We will compare NRG Energy to related businesses based on the strength of its valuation, profitability, dividends, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, risk and earnings.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares NRG Energy and its peers top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
NRG Energy	$30.71 billion	$864.00 million	40.52
NRG Energy Competitors	$15.04 billion	$1.51 billion	21.77

NRG Energy has higher revenue, but lower earnings than its peers. NRG Energy is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and target prices for NRG Energy and its peers, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
NRG Energy	1	3	11	1	2.75
NRG Energy Competitors	1845	7483	6865	185	2.33

NRG Energy currently has a consensus target price of $198.21, suggesting a potential upside of 24.16%. As a group, “UTIL – ELEC PWR” companies have a potential upside of 4.13%. Given NRG Energy’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe NRG Energy is more favorable than its peers.

Risk and Volatility

NRG Energy has a beta of 1.35, suggesting that its share price is 35% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, NRG Energy’s peers have a beta of -1.57, suggesting that their average share price is 257% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

97.7% of NRG Energy shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 71.7% of shares of all “UTIL – ELEC PWR” companies are owned by institutional investors. 0.4% of NRG Energy shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 4.1% of shares of all “UTIL – ELEC PWR” companies are owned 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.

Profitability

This table compares NRG Energy and its peers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
NRG Energy	2.81%	109.48%	6.55%
NRG Energy Competitors	7.72%	9.90%	1.85%

Dividends

NRG Energy pays an annual dividend of $1.90 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.2%. NRG Energy pays out 48.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, “UTIL – ELEC PWR” companies pay a dividend yield of 3.0% and pay out 66.7% of their earnings in the form of a dividend. NRG Energy has increased its dividend for 1 consecutive years.

Summary

NRG Energy beats its peers on 11 of the 15 factors compared.

About NRG Energy

NRG Energy, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as an energy and home services company in the United States and Canada. It operates through Texas; East; West/Services/Other; Vivint Smart Home; and Corporate Activities segments. The company produces and sells electricity generated using coal, oil, solar, and battery storage; natural gas; and a cloud-based home platform, including hardware, software, sales, installation, customer service, technical support, and professional monitoring solutions. It offers retail electricity and energy management, line and surge protection products, HVAC installation, repair and maintenance, home protection products, carbon offsets, back-up power stations, portable power, portable solar, and portable lighting; retail services comprising demand response, commodity sales, energy efficiency, and energy management solutions; and system power, distributed generation, renewable and low-carbon products, carbon management and specialty services, backup generation, storage and distributed solar, and energy advisory services. In addition, the company trades in power, natural gas, and related commodities; environmental products; weather products; and financial products, including forwards, futures, options, and swaps. It offers its products and services under the NRG, Reliant, Direct Energy, Green Mountain Energy, and Vivint. It serves residential, commercial, government, industrial, and wholesale customers. NRG Energy, Inc. was founded in 1989 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.